A few days had passed with our trio settling into the town of Forest's Edge. Bart had received his epiphany and Topher was loosening up from his gruff stoic demeanor and was smiling more. He was getting to spend some quality time with a family he did not know he had, and would roughhouse with little Trevor all day after the boy had come back from his lessons. Topher loved plants and animals and would take Trevor to the garden in town where he and Trevor would watch the birds and and look at toads and fishes in the pond. Topher would tell Trevor of his days growing up and taking care of his family, and encouraged him to not take his parents for granted and to study hard at school. One day, after Trevor came back from school, he gave Topher a toy horse that he had made, saying that he knew how much his uncle loved horses, and spent his childhood and work days with them (Topher told Trevor of his some of his journeys and briefly of some of his battles, but never went into details because he did not want to relive those days and felt Trevor would be better off not knowing of them). The gift meant a lot to Topher and he messed up Trevor's hair lovingly. He smiled at him, a smile with a shade of sadness as he knew he'd have to depart, to fight for his sake, and hoped he'd see him again.

Derik and Teresa were very pleased at having Topher in their house and seeing how well he got along with Trevor. Derik would spend all his free time with his brother catching up, and showing him around the town, to all the important buildings and inns, but most especially to the military installments which were his creations, not to mention the fighting arena, where the brothers enjoyed viewing all sorts of martial art contests and bloodsports; To Topher these really were some of the best days of his life. Bart knew better than to intrude on Topher's private time, and mostly did his own wanderings around the town, taking in all the sights and especially visiting the many ethnic neighbourhoods with their music scenes, chatting up with other musicians, and playing instruments with them.

While Bart and Topher were enjoying some much needed recreational time, Will had to get busy in continuing their quest. He made his way to the headquarters of the Inquisition, where he showed them his referral. The office asked him which branch of the inquisition he was interested in and why, to which Will replied he was interested in the suppression of Dark magic, because he felt its presence from the Forest, and worried about humanity's safety, and wanted to be ready to combat it. He was directed to the Suppression of Dark Magic Department where he was given initial courses to brainwash and solidify his orthodoxy, which Will pretended to go along with and told them what they wanted to hear. They then directed him to the library of the Magisterium, a big majestic building with many scrolls on various topics, with a permit and a booklist, to self-study, from which he would later be examined, before being trained in basic combat moves. Will asked the librarian to direct him and she told him what he needed to know. When researching the books, Will found that the books were mostly just propaganda books on how evil magic and magic users were, and were more concerned at trying to find out humans who were trying to learn magic, than anything about magical creatures, or more importantly how to defeat dark magic, or anything about Mozgus.

"Damn it!" thought Will "I thought I would actually make headway on our quest, but this seems like a waste of time. However this is a big library and though the church may keep tabs on what I check in, or out, I could try and learn a thing or two from these propaganda books about the origins of magic and of the church and try and read between the lines. Maybe I should check out books on folk and children's tales too, because under metaphors and stories they tend to contain grains of truth, and their childishness precludes any serious inquiry by the church." He then checked out books on fables, and church stories about the creation of humanity.

THE ORIGIN MYTH OF HUMANITY:

In the beginning there was this world, and upon this world were the nation of creatures and beings that dealt in the perfidious and blasphemous arts of magic. Our Lord Creator, who felt deeply ashamed at His good world sullied by such filth, created us, the human race in His image. It was our Lord's task to bring truth and light to the wayward folk and bring them into the fold, but they made the first humans into their slaves! However unbeknownst to them Our Lord gave us the ability to breed, and we outbred our cruel masters, and further they were struck by pestilence by The Lord, and the human race was able to band together and free the good lands of the Realm from their presence and they took refuge in the mountains, forests, and bogs, at the outer edges of the Realm and even beyond perhaps to other continents. Such was the Will of the Lord and Humanity's Manifest Destiny to Claim the Realm. Then The Lord inspired the first generations to create the sacred foundation of The Holy Mother Church, where mankind would praise God and forever make it their mission to annihilate any magical presence. The savage magical beings have been dealt with, and now live far away, but the greater threat to humanity is within itself, to those wishing to learn magic, and consorting with magical beings who are anathema to the Holy Mother Church. Alas! humanity has a short memory as the various Kings and Princes of humanity quarrel with the church and pursue their own interests, when they forget that God has chosen His Church to guide and bring Peace to its Flock. Dear reader, always be mindful of God, and always revere without question the dictates of His Church.

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Will read this and felt exhausted. "My God, that was a boring and predictable read, but there were some interesting details in that the church believes humans did not belong to this realm originally, but came from elsewhere, and that magical nations were humanity's masters. If this did happen it must have happened in the far distant past as no one has seen or heard of magical creatures, at least until Topher and Bart's dealing with the witch and the goblin. But let's look at some of these peasant stories, maybe they are a bit more useful and make for better reading than Church propaganda" thought Will. Will perused through some of the books, and tried to look up books on famous dragons, and the like. Dragons had been extinct for years, but he found a tale of a future dragon to be, that could be the extinction of the world.

THE TALE OF DREAD DRAGON OF THE APOCALYPSE:

Once upon a time, there was a young peasant lad. He and his family lived in bone crushing poverty, in a time of famine. One day, in desperation to find food for his family, he went into the woods and saw a lake of clear and gleaming water. Near the lake there lived a female fae (magical spirit), who revealed herself and the two fell in love. She would present the boy with offerings of food from which he would feed himself and his family. The villagers, envious of the boy and his family, for eating better than they did, hired a spy to follow the boy, and upon seeing his meeting with the fae they informed the Church. The Church killed the boy's parents as heretics, and as the boy ran into the forest he found that his lover had been killed by her magical brethren who found she had committed the ultimate taboo of having intimate relations with a human. The boy, out of his mind with grief, ran deep into the forest, where he fell into a hole and there encountered a devil that had the form of a giant centipede. "Ahhh, the delicious smell of despair, tell me my son, do you want revenge on both humanity and the fae, who have bereft you of all that you loved?" The boy, in desperation, agreed and the demon gave him a sphere with a face of anguish upon it. Once the boy in his despair touched it, the sphere wailed, upon which the demon inhabited the boy's body. "I am now part of you, and if you want to live, feed me, I live on chaos and despair, I will give you your revenge on humanity and the fae, your anger and hatred will feed you; our ultimate goal is to sow so much chaos and destruction, that we can ultimately transform into a gigantic black dragon, one which will set fire to the world. My name is Mozgus and I will doom the world."

And so the boy became Mozgus, and Mozgus became the boy. One needing the dark magical powers of spirit, and the other a flesh host from which to roam the realm. It is foretold that the dragon will appear in a time of great turmoil, and unless stopped will doom the world. Dear reader, play your part in making the world a better place, or else the forces of chaos and evil will gain victory."

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"Mozgus" whispered Will "I knew I'd find something in fairy tales, but my knowledge is incomplete. Where on Earth do we find this person? More importantly, how do we defeat him? I know over the last hundred years there have been more and more wars among humans, sometimes because one king accuses the other of sleeping with his wife, the other for killing his successor, some just for greed for land and riches, I wonder if it's connected with this figure from legend. Though it depends how old this story is, which I can't tell. Maybe this book could be a hundred years old? We need a magical perspective on this, I've learned all that I can here. If anything that goblin needs to appear, because otherwise we don't have a shot at success" Will thought ruefully.

He packed off and went back to Derik's house where he would try and touch base with Topher and Bart.