Ask the Wizard – Time Serpent Blues
I have heard your whispering doubts and dubious ruminations through the auspices of the many magics that are at my disposal as the most puissant and handsome wizard of the Free Kingdoms, and I know that each and every one of you has a dreadful fear nestled deep in your bitter hearts. Well, fear no more, for I have returned to bring answer to all of your queries, hope to all of your hopelessness and wisdom where before there was only that which you have betwixt your filthy ears.
Who am I to promise such things as these? Why, I am none other than Ulesorin the Green. Mightiest of all sorcerers, most charming of enchanters, most evocative of invokers and keeper of the scrolls that I forgot to hand back into the library several centuries ago. If they want those overdue fines, they can pry them from my cold dead hands.
Once during each turn of your moon the planetary bodies align correctly for the passage of news between our realms, and when the stars are right I give answers to your confused and often ill-worded queries. You lay out your agonies before me, and I act as the sister of your mother.
Hearken, a question comes now!
***
Oh great Ulesorin,
I am at that stage of life where my children have dispersed across the face of the earth. Much as I enjoy the extra space this gives me at home I do still try to keep in touch with me. However, my attempts to use a brand of Palintir or seeing stone called “Skype” have fallen into difficulty.
Whenever I am awake it seems my offspring are now asleep. I understand that it is something to do with “zones of time.” However, none of the Edain of Numenor, Arnor or Gondor reported such problems. Not even your great contemporaries Saruman and Sauron (I’m sure you knew him when he was just Gorthaur) were troubled by this inconvenient insyncyronicity.
Please tell how I can get my familial connections back in step.
Yours in frustration,
Distance Dad.
***
With regret I must inform you that none of the names which you have mentioned have much meaning to one such as I. Perhaps they were in the year behind me at Wizard School. Or, more likely, perhaps those bitches need to get on my level.
Far-Flung Father, fear not. For there are many simple means by which your wrongs might be righted. The first and most simple is teleportation. Simply travel through the Riven Realm of Darkness beneath the world using all of your arcane might to hold off the weight of entropy and visit each of your disinterested spawn in turn. It is a simple enough incantation for those with the skill.
If that is not to your liking, or you made the wrong choices when selecting your job and/or class resulting in no training in the arcane arts, then you shall simply have to embark upon a glorious quest to return time to its natural alignment.
All you shall need is a party of five ethnically diverse teenagers, each with their own elemental powers, or possibly artefacts that they have independently uncovered from a bygone age of magic. With those brave heroes gathered, set out to thwart whichever warlock or time-serpent had sundered your plane.
Within their Chrono-Castle or Epoch Eyrie you shall find an object, most likely an oversized hourglass, which you shall have to smash at an opportune moment when it seems that all is lost. This will reset time to its natural flows and allow you to reunite with the family that was stolen from you by their wicked machinations.
Failing all of these perfectly valid options, there is but one final art that I might bestow upon you that may allow you to reconnect with those that you have lost to the ravages of time. By the power of the mad machinations of your world, I have found that letters can be inscribed upon lightning and flung through space to arrive almost instantly upon the stage of your children’s thunderboxes. Using these lightning letters, you can communicate at your leisure and improve upon your vocabulary in preparation for the doubtless glowing letter of appreciation that you shall be sending to me in thanks for my most excellent advice.
Personally, I’d go with murdering the time-serpent though. That seems considerably easier, and there is the possibility of additional loot and avenging any dead parents that you have acquired through the years along the way.
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*Disclaimer: All answers are provided for entertainment purposes only. It may not be in your best interests to follow advice provided by a 1794-year-old man who lives alone in a tower and hunts his kobold lawyers through the catacombs for sport.