Preface

Marshall Zildjian has been Book-Keeper for the county of Nod for near two centuries, and really hadn't been looking for work when he found this gig.

Nod is and was an average size county, but the size of their problems was huge at the time of Marshall's hiring. The issue itself was of the common kind. Common, that is, since the end of the Great Oppression where a little over six billion people were murdered at the whim of a few power brokers. The good news? The carnage and desperate want of those days ended when those fat cats were rounded up and put down for their crimes.

Presently, there is plenty too much of everything to go around except laws and advanced technology. That stuff is hoarded by the new brokers and dispensed to the various territories and counties through the Master Bookeepers, both official and Black Market.

Stuck smack dab in the middle of the eastern Sierra foothills, Nod can be found in what used to be referred to as the State of Nevada. It's more, than less; a group of mountain communities nestled among the woods with the few eastern towns of that county, seeing more high desert and less pine.

Marshall had come to Wallace, the county seat, as a freelance Wizard just passing through looking to get cleaned up, and fed, before moving on.

Just as Marshall was mounting his horse to leave, he'd been confronted by Wallace's version of the aforementioned common problem... one of the locals, a drunken Black Market Bookeeper and Sorcerer, who tried bullying the Wizard into giving him his horse.
Marshall measured a spell to set the inebriated Sorcerer down. The spell itself had been a simple melody but had been enough to back him off his attempt. It had also gained the notice of the town leaders who at that time had no resident authority to prevent this Marketeer from imposing himself on the citizens, they persuaded Zildjian to take up a "temporary" position as an interim Bookeeping Representative.

Nearly twelve years passed before the city fathers decided to approach Zildjian about a "permanent" position, and although he never "officially" accepted it, he has been Nod's Bookeeper Officiant ever since.

Over the years the Sorcerer continued his errant behavior, though in a more incremental and sometimes subdued fashion.

Marshall eventually came to discover the craft name he went by, but knew that it was only a spell caster's choice and not his given name. County Nod had him on their register as Mack. The craft name he had chosen was Bender, and his voice was fairly strong for a Black Market Sorcerer.

Their contention persisted until Bender either left or died and that was sixty-some years ago. Had it not been for the very county laws that the Keeper was trying to uphold, Bender would have sung his last minor note a hundred years back. And that is where the Marshall's story really begins and if it ends I will try and record that as well if I am able.
I am Deputy Keeper Tama. I'm a Wizard, and I became a Sorcerer student of Wizard Zildjian back at the onset of the real trouble.