Taradiddle Lightstaff walked down to the river bank. He had just come from the temple of Laanx. The mage was raised as a deciple of Talad but as he grew to middle age he found little favor from any god in particular. Yet he still felt comfort in their existance in general. He sat down at the river's edge and watched the serpent gobbles snatching fish from the water.

There was a cool, quiet breeze and everything seemed softer and more settled after the recent rain. His attention turned from the gobbles to a leaf turning and floating happlessly down the river. As the leaf wandered down with the current, Taradiddle's thoughts wandered with it, back through many cycles of his life to his youth and to a man who's name he had just read in the Book of Names, back in the temple.

"If you cut these hollow reeds into short lengths and slip them over the legs of a starbug, like this..."

A slim, good looking Ylian youth looked on amused and amazed at the old magician as he placed the reeds onto the long-legged bug. With the reeds in place it no longer had the appearance of an insect. It looked remarkably like a man made of sticks.

The magician passed his hand over the bug and muttered some gutteral phrase. The starbug stood up on its hind legs and began to walk across the table. It looked for all the world like a tiny stick man strutting awkwardly at the old man's bidding.

Taradiddle was learning his first illusion from the old mage and showman, Bartle Houdin, the master of "Bartle's Show of Wonders". Bartle waved his hand over the small table again and the starbug fell flat, encumbered by the reeds.

"Now you do it." said Bartle.

Taradiddle repeated the words exactly as he had heard them and passed his hand over the starbug but nothing happened. The boy tried again, still nothing. This went on all morning and into the afternoon with no response from the insect and increasing frustration from the boy. Bartle watched as Taradiddle repeatedly failed until the boy got up and went to the window and looked out verging on tears.

"I don't think it is Talad's will that I become magical, master."

"Will is indeed what is needed here but not Talad's. Magic requires your will and the ability to focus it. You must also be able to charm the object of your spell to follow that will. That ability be called Charisma. Think in terms of the little mind of that starbug and how you might turn your intentions to his."

The boy returned to the table and tried again. Still there was no cooperation from the bug. Bartle came over to the table and handed him a stone ring. "This be the 'Spellweaver's Ring' given to me by my master who said it was crafted by the eldar gods themselves. As you cast your spell, look through the hole in the ring at our little friend there and focus your attention to his little thoughts. Don't be angry. Rather think of how amusing he looks when he walks for you."

Taradiddle looked through the ring and remembered the little stick man. He concentrated at his tiny subject and repeated his spell. This time he felt a tingle of joy as his hand passed over the table. The creature jumped to its hind legs and wobbled across the table!  The old man and the lad laughed triumphantly. "Well done Taradiddle!, said Bartle. " Release the poor thing from your spell and those reeds. Set him free. He has had a harder a day than you I'll wager."

Taradiddle obeyed the magician and took the reed pieces from the bug and set it outside. He went to his little spellbook and started repeating other casts as he focused his will through the ring to other things. Living or not, each subject responded. By dinner time the young, new mage could flip a clacker from thirty meters away.

Evening came and Bartle called out. "Come in now, boy! Tis time for tea!"
Taradiddle entered the little house.

"Give me back the ring please." said Bartle.

Taradiddle hesitated but obeyed. The old man dropped the ring into a pot of water he had just placed over the fire. "The only power that stone has is to rattle our pot when the water boils. You just needed to focus your will and charisma."

Taradiddle was astonished. "It was not fashioned by the gods?"

"Faith in a god is good Taradiddle. Have faith in the god of your choosing, but trust in man. And trust yourself most of all. Now make our tea." said Bartle.

Taradiddle heard the rattling of the stone ring coming from the pot on the hearth.

Taradiddle Lightstaff looks frustrated at Jayose. "Good sir, I understand you cannot accept my humble submissions yourself but I have looked for one of these 'Knowledge Seekers' in your employ since I saw their post. I have been all over Hydlaa. They are not to be found. It is just three small books. May I not leave them in your care to give to them?"
Jayose pushes the little stack of tomes back at the frustrated Taradiddle.
"Thank you for your apathy sir! I shall go and be ignored in a better establishment!"
The dejected mage stomps out of the library.

Taradiddle Lightstaff wiped his brow and swung his pick into the wall yet again. It sent chips flying off violently as his pick sought a vein of ore. Normally he was remarkably well
dressed and presented himself formally but this day he was in leather chaps with an ore bag slung to his shoulder. He found himself, this day, in the employ of  Grunior, a dwarf, guild elder, and weapon crafter of great renoun.

Normally Grunior employed Taradiddle's friend, Padrig Ottersbrook, a fellow dwarf and guildmate to help him mine for his ore. His brodr dwarf was much better company than this Ylian. His barely noticable beard surrounded a mouth that never stopped talking.  Alas, Padrig was giving council to some of his brodr dwarves and Grunior was left swinging a pick with Taradiddle.

"Grunior, why is it that Padrig is always being called to advise fellow dwarves? He is no elder. Does he hold some dwarven office or authority?"

Grunior smiled, "He holds no office but his name. Padrig is from the line of Ottersbrook. Through our long history his kin are well known for their wisdom and insight. It would be a foolish dwarf indeed who did not weigh an Ottersbrook's word as sound wisdom." He continued, "Padrig's father's, father's, father's, I'm not sure how many generations ago, father was Crisbolt Ottersbrook. He is known to all dwarves as the reader of the Clever Stick."

"I'm sure in all my travels with Padrig I have never heard tell of this Clever Stick.", said Taradiddle.
"Your folk don't take the care of your lore like we do.",  said Grunior. "And Ylians like to give things names of great pretense. Your folk call the clever stick the staff of enlightenment."

"By any name I am afraid I am at a loss.", said Taradiddle. Grunior leaned against the rock wall, wiped his brow and began the old tale.

"In the early generations of Yliakum as folk were just finding their own way and learnin the ways of others there was a group of farmers and artisans that settled in a valley not far from what we now call the Eagle Bronze Doors. They got along well enough with the folk that surrounded them in the mountains who took to hunting, soldiering, exploring, and the crafting of tools and weapons. They traded a little and the folk in the valley paid tributes every harvest season to the mountain folk in appreciation for their protection. The arrangement worked well enough for awhile but time has a way of makin' folk think of what they haven't got.

The valley folk wanted to farm more lands and take their wears to other towns to trade but feared venturing beyond the protection of the soldiers in the hills. They complained and always got the same answer. The folk in the hills had only enough guards to patrol what they already patrolled and they weren't gettin' enough tribute to recruit more guards. Then the valley folk would say they gave all the tribute they could afford given the size of their fields and the number of folk they had to tend and especially till and harvest. Every year each group would send their emissaries and they'd repeat the same arguments and come home with no change or hope of change."

"And the problem was solved by a clever stick?", snickered Taradiddle. Grunior shook his head. "I know your not as dumb as you try to be, Lightstaff. Now listen."

"A day came when a young bare-faced, skinny-legged Ylian boy come walkin into one of the bigger guard camps up in the hills. He wore a bright sash wrapped about him that
looked odd considering his otherwise simple work clothes. He said to the guards, 'I carry an important message from the people of the valley but I don't know what it is.'
'Well give us the sealed message and we'll give it to the appropriate leaders.', said the guard's captain. But there was no sealed message. There was the messenger with no
message except that he had a message.
'I was told to come here and tell you I carried a message. Exactly that and nothing more.', said the Ylian. The captain of the guard was a clever enough fellow, 'They gave you that sash. Let me see it.'

The young man took the long sash from his waste and handed it to the guard. It was a bright blue and the edges about the top and bottom had bright yellow swurves and lines in an ornate but seemingly random pattern. The guards' captain tried to dicern a message from it. He called for the elders and officers from other camps to decode it. The sash was folded every imaginable way and held up to the crystal to see into it. Nothing made it sensible.

'This is some code or ancient language. What else was given you to read this cipher?' asked the captain.
'Only this walking stick to help my way, sir.', said the messenger.

A private in the guard burst out in a loud, dwarven laugh. 'Ottersbrook!', said the captain, 'I fail to see the humor!'
'That is because you fail to see the message sir.' said the dwarf.
Crisbolt Ottersbrook took the sash and began to wind it down around the boy's staff. As he did, the pattern from the bottom of the sash's edge met with the pattern on the top edge of the next turn around the staff. The dwarf continued to wind the sash around the walking stick and the words of the message appeared along the seam the sash made.
Private Ottersbrook grinned. He said, 'If the stick were any fatter or thinner it wouldn't work. It had to go on the very stick the boy brought us!'

'What does it say?, the captain asked.
"Let the man who is clever enough to read this message come and speak with us about our differences.", read Crisbolt.
'Well then, Ottersbrook, get thee gone! You have a negotiation to attend.' commanded the captain of the guards. And so it was.

"I take it this Crisbolt Ottersbrook was successful in his negotiations if his line is still known to this day.", said Taradiddle.
Grunior smiled. "Now you want to know about The Three Sided Coin. That is a tale for another day."
Grunior's smile widened. "I will tell you this though. The fellow who made the Clever Stick, that Staff of Enlightenment, back in the long ago, they gave him a nickname ..."
"Lightstaff?"