Greetings to you, all ye future corpses.

Tis I, Ulesorin the Green, master of three out of the four winds, undisputed champion of the arcane – regardless of what that bitch Gondalion the White says – and most importantly to you, I am the keeper of the secret lore; that which has led to my station as the Uncle of Catastrophy. The Cousin of Despair. The Aunt of Agonies!

***

Dear Ulesorin,

I am struggling in my current role, the work is great but I have way too much of it. I’ve been headhunted by another mercenary group for better pay and conditions, but leaving would mean I get cursed by the local hedgewitches for the next thousand years.

What would you recommend?

***

Dear Role Struggler,

Your complaint falls upon deaf and profoundly confused ears. There is only the great work, and all other things are mere reflections of it. All of creation is but an illusion constructed to misdirect us from our understanding of the great work. To complain that too much of the great work is in your possession is tantamount to a fish complaining at an abundance of water. We should all be so blessed as to have your luck in receiving so great a portion of the great work. You worthless intellectual midget. Were I given the opportunity, I would come to your home and strip your understanding of the arcane from your forebrain with rusty forks.

My kobold lawyer/apprentice has just informed me that given the absence of magic from your world, your complaint is not related to the great work. There is no great work. You heard nothing about it. Especially from me. Great work? I do not know her.

Having now read a little further into your letter, I feel somewhat better equipped to answer you now. As I am sure you are aware, life and work balance is incredibly important to persons of my brilliance. To whit – the balance is such that one side of the scales have ascended to the heavens and beyond, and the other contains but a single feather, tarred with the word ‘work.’ 

As such, the particular burden that you face is both familiar to me, and simultaneously an alien concern. Work is clearly what matters most in your life, otherwise what possible reason would you have for devoting so much of your time and efforts to it. Why, even now, when offered the infinite wisdom of Ulesorin, you bring a question about your work.

Pay and conditions are another matter of course. Like most adventurers, in my youth I frequently switched from one party to the next. Each one promising superior pay, or a superior experience. In as many years, I travelled with no less than seventeen different chosen-one-farm-boys on their way to slay their respective dark lords, departing dramatically at the midpoint of each of their stories to provide them with the impetus to press on, while simultaneously freeing myself up to move to the next great offer I’d received.

If you wish to move from one mercenary group to another, simply stage a dramatic battle with something huge and powerful, and then have it drag you into some sort of abyss, from the depths of which you can give that monstrous day-player the going rate in gold and depart for fine new pastures. In addition to assisting you in avoiding any sort of newt-related transfiguration courtesy of the hedge-witches, this also allows you to avoid awkward goodbyes.

Failing that you can always go with plan b, of luring your adventuring party into a dungeon that is markedly too high in level for them, and then sealing the door behind them when the screaming starts.

***

Email your problems to thefantasyhive@gmail.com with the subject: Ask the Wizard. Or leave a comment below. Having relationship issues? Need career advice? You name it, our ‘Agony Ant’ can help!*

*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 claims to have magical powers.