They cleared our escape path with fireballs and chain lightning with the legionnaires supporting and defending the flanks and rear. With a complete inability to close and fight us, the Cantran soldiers backed off to reduce their losses. Once we were in the open outside the castle proper, they fired arrows, dropped boiling water and acid on us from their battlements but prismatic spheres protected us against all attacks. Once out of range of projectiles, the mages cast an area effect invisibilty spell on the party and we quietly escaped, unseen and out of phase with the rest of the world. The legend of Minnerv, one of the battlemages, began that day. Once on appropriated horses, we galloped away leaving all our belongings behind. I missed all of our evacuation and only woke that night as we hid in a grove of trees some distance from the city. The mages and legionnaires were completely exhausted and depleted and would need to rest overnight to recuperate.
Pursuit was desultory and disorganised as we had killed so many of their leaders and soldiers in our escape. Unfortunately the bishop had survived. No doubt any remaining soldiers would be reluctant to attack us except their radical paladins and templars. In any event although the journey home was long and difficult, a party with two Monagon arch battlemages with a young Minnerv and a contingent of veteran legionnaires was more than equal to the task.
Only the difficulty of conducting a major campaign across the continent prevented a full scale war. We had seven fully manned legions available to be launched in revenge once the debacle and treachery of the Cantran's was discovered. We would need to retain three legions to remain to defend our state. The two returning mages and the military commander briefed the then king and council. They deliberated for days and ultimately decided that a campaign would be too costly in lives and resources. There would be little doubt of the eventual outcome as our assessment of the Cantran military was that they would fare no better than anyone else our legions had come up against. We would take the slow route and gradually come to rule the whole continent, spreading our culture, science, magic, secular ideology and equality of the sexes.
As a talented novice magic user with an immense natural talent for mana manipulation, I had flown through the ranks of initiate, disciple, adept and mage upon my return home. I was a fourth generation mage and my parents had been very wealthy and powerful. The estate I inherited easily supported me and I had good advice from my extended family in all matters. The king was very helpful also due to the circumstances of my parent's death. Being so talented I was sponsored and assisted with powerful patrons through mage school. I like to think I earned my ranks by hard work and talent
Most recently, my rapid ascendancy through the hierarchy peaked as I become one of the youngest ever arch mages. Certainly my desire to rise through the ranks of the mage college was fuelled by my secret plans for revenge. Being a powerful archmage would enable me to further my schemes on the bishop who was now prime cardinal and head of the religious of Contra. My personal grievances were secret from the mage college and the ruler of Monagon. I kept my schemes close to my heart. I hoped to evade war between the two empires but revenge was my primary motive and if war eventuated - then so be it.
Our spies regularly reported on events in Cantra and apparently they had tripled their numbers of paladins specialising in theological based magic and more specifically combat against mages. They started a new combat unit called of battlepriests seemingly after our battlemages. Their inability to deal with our mages was no doubt a shock to their clergy and military. A mistake they would try to remedy. However a full squad of twenty battlemages in a legion of over 5,000 would be an enemy much harder to combat. They couldn't handle two mages and 60 legionnaires. We were perhaps fortunate that Minnerv, our premier arch battlemage had been in Cantra but regardless of her presence or absence the outcome would have been similar. As a precaution we put spies into their paladin & battlepriest colleges to learn their tactics and ways to counter this specialist unit.
The current king of Monagon was sympathetic to my plight and the tragedy of my parents. We were of similar ages and had been friends throughout our youth. His father had made the incorrect and unfortunate assumption that a trade delegation and consular officials even if headed by my mother, an archmage, would be exempt from the Cantran clergy's law against magic and would have protected status and immunity. Even though Contra had been advised that the delegate head was a magic user and Monagon had been assured that would not be an issue. Two problems - my mother was both a woman in charge of men and a mage. All difficult, and as it turned out, impossible for the Contran clergy and their ruler to reconcile against their preconceived and strongly held beliefs of male superiority.
Cantra was strongly patriarchal and women were second class citizens with no agency. According to their ideology, men should be in charge and women should be submissive to them in every way. As we found when we arrived in Cantra, education of women was strictly limited to domestic matters. They had no power in society or marriage and were reduced to submissive chattels serving their husband and master and birthing children. My mother railed against their institutions in private and wanted to sponsor a women's foundation which of course gained no traction in Contra and likely caused further friction with their king and clergy. Women in Monagon were of equal status to men.
I was actually my parent's daughter and was currently under a permanent polymorph spell to appear as Alwyn, a man with a carefully crafted back story. My delegation were all of the belief that I was a man as that is the way I had been presented to them to maintain complete secrecy of my true identity. I had demonstrated no use of magic and they were also of the belief that I was a mundane like them. I had no magic "apparently" in my temporary male persona and would be acceptable as the head of our trade delegation to Contra. Their still rabid antipathy to magic and magic users made it impossible to send a mage or a female. As my female birth details and identity would be known in Cantra I couldn't go using my real female self. My escape and the devastation the arch mages caused with their exodus from the castle was a severe embarrassment to the bishop and the Cantran nobility.
Cantran men were in every position of power. My impact and influence in Contra as a woman would be severely compromised and a man was the only possible choice of senior delegate as we were now aware. Men were of course on average larger and stronger than women. Magic, however, was the great equaliser and women were more talented and powerful than men in the weirding ways of magic. Nine of ten mages and arch mages were women and the Magistra of the academy was invariably female and the most powerful archmage. The most powerful male mage had only a third of the power of the most powerful female mage. Mundane women did serve in the army and navy but mainly in support roles. Female battle mages more than made up for their small numbers in the immense power we could weld as potent casters of battle magic. Even the combat champion of a legion was trivial for a mage to defeat in seconds. Fireballs, lightning or frost strikes could decimate any man. Magical ability was quite rare though and we were only a few percent of the total population. Major conflicts in the past between mages and mundanes had taught Monagon painful lessons that we were best working together.
Vivid memories of my mother was that she was very much a feminine force of nature and would brook no attempts to belittle, ignore or subjugate her. She was the absolute head of our household but still had a loving relationship with my father and was well liked by our staff and servants. She was in hindsight a bad choice for head of the delegation and bad blood started from their initial meetings as the Contrans attempted to ignore my mother. She, in turn, left them with no doubt that she was in charge which riled the Cantran patriarchy no matter how diplomatic and accommodating my mother was. Which they regarded as weakness and evidence that any woman was ill suited to leadership. Unfortunately as Cantra was so far away from Monagon and at that time we knew little about them as they were so far away. We hadn't comprehended the extent of the absolute dominance of men in their patriarchal society. Especially as our society was balanced with both sexes sharing control of everything according to the capabilities of each person, male or female. Our two societies were complete opposites.
Unfortunately for our king, I was the local expert on everything Cantra and one of the only people who had actually lived there for even a short period and young enough to be in their prime. We had been building a spy network slowly in recent years and learning more about their society & culture. And as one of the most powerful and youngest ever to ascend to the high status of an arch mage, I was a reluctant but by far the best choice available to the king. The archmage council strongly advocated me too. With our long friendship he believed my entreaties that I would not exact any revenge if chosen to lead the delegation. I would of course take expert advice from my merchant colleagues in matters of trade and finance. I had been given the sternest warnings to adhere to the king's policies and to negotiate a good outcome for Monagon. All of which I would ignore if I could exact my burning desire for revenge. I had loved my parents and especially my mother dearly and my heart was broken for years after their demise. Now in the fullness of my power we will see what we will see of my long awaited, cold revenge.
There were strict rules against the use of charm, command and enthrall spells against mundanes who had no defences against magic or even to detect such use. The position of king's mage was to invoke a powerful geas on the magic user in that position to be loyal to the ruler and state. They were there not only to advise on the ways and use of magic but to detect magic use and arcane influence against the court. The ability to be a truth sayer and detect lies from anyone was an advantage that only the king's mage had. The Magistra, the grand arch mage was the leader of the mage college and an independent person on the ruling council advising the king and setting the laws of the land. Running the mage college was a full time role.
