ANESIAnesi, the grandson of the famous wizard Stribel Wartsworth, and born to Choboz and Mildi, had studied at Galepath University shortly before 956 GUE. His grandfather, realizing his potential, was able to pull a few strings to get him accepted into the university at a very young age, in fact, no one so young had ever been accepted before.
Before attending Galepath, his mother, at Stribel’s insistence, put Anesi through the Birnam Woods Speed Reading course. His study habits were made excellent, propelling him to the top of his class. Anesi’s favorite course at the university was Pranks Practicum 101, where he learned the FILFRE spell, and how to create gratuitous fireworks.
While there, The Great Shuboz Shuboz and his companions had their crystal ball upon him for some time. The young magical genius discovered a spell that no one else knew—the water-shaping spell. Such discoveries were nearly unheard-of as his young age, for many enchanters and sorcerers spend their entire lives searching for one original spell and may never find it. And unlike Anesi, not all enchanters could memorize REZROV permanently. It was a mark of the genius that came to him through his grandfather Stribel.
While Anesi was very talented, he was untrained. This was largely due to the fact that the boy attended the university for less than half a term before his father jerked him out. Choboz believed that the wizards (“those perverts” as he called them) were teaching his boy bad things, trying to make him both an enchanter and better than his own father. He refused to allow such a thing. So he packed up the family and moved north to the isolated wildlands north of Frobozz, to be as far removed from the Enchanters Guild as possible. The boy would not see his grandfather again for another ten years, and only remembered that he could do wonderful things.
Anesi’s first spell book, a shabby little dog-eared volume had been given to him by the professors of the Galepath University, but his father took it from him and burned it, along with other books his grandfather Stribel left with him, which included legends about the Great Terror. Choboz forbade his son from ever using spells again. Anesi had never told his father about his practice of the water-shaping spell and kept it secret. He knew that his father would only get furious and certainly beat him dead if he dared to cast a spell.
The family home and furniture had been constructed by his overachieving father (even Anesi’s sandals had been made by him). The boy had his own loft bedroom, which could only be reached by climbing a ladder. Though surrounded by woods, the shore of the Great Sea was very close. The surf could be heard as it pounded the nearby narrow beach. The home had been built on a point of land that jutted into the ocean, so they had an unobstructed view of the water.
Except for Anesi’s parents and Fidget’s family (Fidget was his best and only friend), only one or two hunters chose to live alone in the isolated northern parts—there was not another soul around for miles. Anesi hated the dark and gloomy woods around his home. They always made him shiver. He longed for the teeming streets and markets of Galepath, the people in their colorful clothes, all the street games, all the noise and laughter, and the energy of a busy city. But he found that his fear of the woods was due to his sensibility to the workings of evil magic, for one of the seven servants of the Great Terror had been dormant in its den beneath the forest.
In these days, Anesi thin and willowy and possessed nothing that anyone would ever mistake for muscle. He took entirely too much after his mother’s side of the family, which his father had often told him so. His head was matted with thick dark brown curls, and his countenance was painted with a narrow nose, full mouth, and skinny neck. Whenever he introduced himself, “I’m Anesi,” those who received his name always though he said, “I’m uneasy.” His motto in later life would be, “Go for the GNUSTO!”
About 966 GUE, when the influence of the Great Terror reached its height, Khare the Watcher and the masters of the Thriff Guild of Enchanters began to sense its power even in North Frobozz. The Great Shuboz Shuboz gathered with six of the Thriff masters: Khare the Watcher, Shad Treeskimmer, Grimbol the Great, Raskil Worrysnot, and Finister. They believed that only one of youth would have the greatest advantage against the Great Terror, for one of that stature would still have their innocence and would not be tempted to evil like most of the others. Anesi fit their requirements—talented and innocent. Seeking him, they set forth on the vessel of Shuboz Shuboz to sail up the coast of the Flathead Ocean to ask him to fight the Terror.
THE CHRONICLE OF ANESI THE ENCHANTER (from the “History of Zork”)
It was a normal day when Anesi spotted the the personal ship of the Great Shuboz Shuboz in the distance out from the shore. Its appearance worried him, for there was no port this far north of Frobozz, nor any place to dock. Pirates had no reason to venture this far north either. Furthermore, only a few scattered people lived in this region, including Anesi’s family, Fidget’s family and Old Felbor with his brogmoid Cubby, and possibly one more.
Anesi returned home to warn his parents of the spotted vessel. With his father and mother, he hid in the smoke hole that was at a distance in the woods from their home. The seven wizards disembarked their vessel and approached the house. They left the Great Shuboz Shuboz without the house while the other six went to find Anesi at the smoke hole. The locked door was quickly broken down with REZROV. Choboz went after the infiltrators with his axe, but was subdued by Grimbol Grumble’s VAXUM.
Now that the fear of enmity had departed, the six wizards and the family returned to Anesi’s home to meet the elderly Shuboz Shuboz. After explaining their reason for setting forth to find Anesi, the Great Shuboz Shuboz gave Anesi a brand new Chevaux-quality spellbook. The binding was a bright blue dyed leather with the symbol of the Thriff Guild worked into the cover with rich, shining gold. The pages were also gilt-edged. It was then that Anesi went to the beach to show his parents what he had been hiding from them for so long—his water-shaping spell.
The following day, Khare the Watcher met with Anesi to instruct him in the principles of magic, as well as gifted him with FROTZ, NITFOL, and BLORB. Shad additionally presented Anesi with IZYUK. Each of these Anesi copied into his spellbook with GNUSTO. The young enchanter practiced his use of IZYUK.
When dinner had finished, Choboz bitterly left the cottage without explanation, while the rest of the family and the wizards went out to the beach. All of the wizards, with an exception of Khare the Watcher, demonstrated their FILFRE spells. When the glamorous display had been finished, the wizards returned to their ship for the night.
That night, Anesi awoke from a dream. His mother was still awake, but his father had not yet returned. Anesi went out to search for him. Khare the Watcher met Anesi outside, to whom he explained that he had always sensed a disturbing presence within the woods surrounding his house. But now the feeling was more treacherous than before. What he had been feeling was the evil presence of a servant of the Terror that had been asleep in its underground lair within the forest’s depths. That night it had awakened.
The other six wizards, having sensed the threatening disturbance arrived briefly via IZYUK, then left to search for Choboz. Khare gifted Anesi with a zorkmid chain medallion and then the both of them IZYUKed over the woods as well to Fidget’s house.
Prior to their arrival, the servant of the Terror, who assumed the form of a giant hellhound, left the entire house in ruins and murdered all of the family with an exception of Fidget. Anesi and Khare found him alive, but in severe shock, unable to speak. The huge hellhound attacked and ensnared Khare by his cloak in its jaws, whipping the enchanter around violently. Fidget lured the servant’s attention with arrows, while an IZYUKed Anesi IZYUKed a cornerpost of the destroyed house to use as a giant spear. Flying above the hellhound, Anesi annulled the presence on his spell and dropped the post point-first through the hellhound’s skull. The other wizards arrived immediately after the defeat of the servant. The Great Shuboz Shuboz rewarded Anesi with the official rank of “young enchanter.”
Anesi returned home. His mother Mildi ordered the wizards to depart and then removed the splinters from Anesi’s arms. The young enchanter offered to provide more light with FROTZ. In reprisal, Mildi angrily told him to forget magic and from now on they would be a normal family. Anesi objected, only to be slapped in retribution. In a maddened flurry, Anesi grabbed his spellbook and FROTZed nearly everything in the room, including Fidget. He screamed his frustration out, that he did not want to be normal when he was able to do things like this, then left into the woods, which were comfortable now that the Servant of the Terror was dead.
The FROTZed Fidget followed Anesi, removed the last splinters from his arms, then anointed him with GOVAKE. The two search for the Servant’s lair. Beyond the ruins of Fidget’s home, is a tunnel which they explore. The Servant’s lair is a treasure-filled room with several scrolls (VAXUM & KREBF) as well as mounds of other valuables, which they help themselves too. As the two companions were leaving, a tribe of kobolds attacked. They were forced to retreat back into the treasure room and cornered. The vicious kobolds were surmounted by the arrival of Cubby the brogmoid; all the beasts surrendered and fled. Felbor was dead and Fidget had no choice but to adopt the brogmoid as his own.
The trio emerged from the tunnel to find Khare the Watcher. He told Anesi to start his journey to Miznia; there was no time to wait, for the other six Servants of the Terror, feeling the death of the other spiritually, were coming north to find the murderer. Fidget and Cubby were determined to go along with him. Khare gifted Anesi with some possessions, including an infotater, BERZIO and a blue enchanters’ cloak, which Mildi have stayed up all night making for him. Anesi told Khare to give his mother the treasures of the lair. The elder magician warned Anesi not to use his magic unnecessarily, since the Servants would be able to sense any magic used in the vicinity.
Patches of the first autumn leaves hung on the trees as the three embarked on their southern journey. They decided to stop for the night. Though deep in the forest, no spells could be used to start the fire, thus Cubby was required to make it by hand. The lonely dryad, Tyrillee spies them at night. She insisted on joining them.
A two day trek brought them to a brook which they followed southward. On the evening of the third day, the woods came to an end. They camped and started a fire. The six remaining Servants of the Terror in the form of giant birds were seen in the sky flying on a northward course. The four quickly doused the fire and hid.
The next morning, they headed south across the barren wasteland. Their route was broken by an immense gorge. Following its edge eastward, they came to a dragon which had been made from a dragon’s skeleton, that of a dragon named Chet. The crossing of the bridge is treacherous as it sways in the wind. Cubby saved them from tumbling off.
They spent the cold night on the other side of the bridge, which was continuation of the vast wasteland they have previously been crossing. In the morning they found the ruined keep of Arbroneth. Presuming it to be abandoned, Anesi REZROVed the doors and they entered.
Inside the entry hall of Arbroneth, they met a Dimwit Flathead marionette. Anesi cut the strings, while Fidget beheaded it. In dismay, Stribel Wartsworth (still in the disguise of Humble Bellows, so none knew who it was; Stribel too did not know it was Anesi at first until the boy said his own name), dropped down into the room and threatened them with magic. Cubby assaulted him. Anesi memorized VAXUM, but Cubby let up the subdued Stribel, who warned that his master Dispoz was coming.
Dispoz returned, but in fear, Anesi VAXUMed him. The master of the keep knew of the enchantment that he had been placed under, and was determined to get even when it wore off. Tyrillee slipped away to explore the keep. When she descended to the dungeon, she found Chuck the dragon who was still imprisoned deep below. She wanted to free him. When Chuck caught sight of the dryad’s red poncho, he was thrown into a rage, for the dragon could not tolerate the color red. He shook the entire foundations of the keep trying to break free from his chains.
As dusk began to fall, Stribel served the companions provisions, while Anesi and Dispoz chatted as friends (though the VAXUM had worn off, Dispoz sought to gain the upper hand by pretending that he was still under its effects). The two magicians learned that they both had attended Galepath University. Another roaring shook the castle to its foundations, destroying even the bridge that connected its two towers. Dispoz took the opportunity to leave, with Anesi following after.
Stribel knew that it took magic to fight magic. Since Dispoz looked like he was about to have his hands full with the dragon, Stribel believed now was a prime opportunity to combat the sorcerer. He only needed a spell, and Anesi was the only one who had any on hand; plus he did not have much faith in the boy. He did not figure that Anesi was prepared to fight either Dispoz or the dragon. He figured if he grabbed Anesi’s book and took off running, that Anesi would come after him trying to get it back instead of putting himself in danger.
Thus Stribel assaulted Anesi and tried to rob him of his spellbook. The young enchanter wrestled with the little man until he tripped over his own Dimwit puppet. When Anesi conked him on the noggin, it knocked some sense into him. Stribel led Anesi to the south tower, then down to an underground place between both towers. After the two tumbled down the steps, Anesi landed and Stribel was not in sight.
Instead, Anesi found not only Fidget, Cubby, Tyrillee, and Dispoz, but the dragon Chuck. Anesi tried to VAXUM Dispoz again, but the powerful sorcerer had since warded himself against it. The encounter raged on. Tyrille and Anesi tried to hold off Dispoz while Fidget and Cubby worked on breaking the dragon’s chains. The dragon exhaled its fiery breath upon Dispoz, but it was completely futile. As a last resort, Anesi REZROVed the dragon’s chains, freeing the beast from all imprisonment. Everyone, except for Dispoz and the dragon, took flight from the keep just before the entire thing collapsed.
In the meantime, while Dispoz was fighting Anesi and Chuck in the dungeon, Stribel knew that his spells were weakened or completely dissipated, including the ward on his library door. This gave Stribel the chance to steal the GUNCHO spell, along with RADNOG and YONK, before escaping Arbroneth. Even though Anesi was his grandson, Stribel knew that he could not yet reveal his identity or magical power, lest if Anesi were to slide over to the Terror’s side, he would be uncovered and his scheme of using GUNCHO foiled.
Using powerful enchantments, Dispoz transformed himself into a blue dragon and engaged in heavy warfare against Chuck. The fight lasted well on into the night. Dispoz kept trying to rip out Chuck’s heart, but he did not know that the dragon’s heart was not in the same place as a human’s. And by the time Chuck had been victorious by crashing and burning his enemy, the companions, including Stribel, had followed the keep’s ceramic aqueduct system southward quite some distance. At the time when Stribel gifted Anesi with RADNOG and YONK scrolls, Chuck landed before them. It was only because of Anesi’s NITFOL that they were able to converse with the friendly creature, before sleeping for the night.
Chuck left earning that morning to cremate Chet. When he returned, he offered to fly everyone as far south as old Mareilon. The aerial ride took them beyond the wastelands, over a charred forest as it gradually melded way into a living one, above the original Frigid River, and southwest to the Shallow Sea. A special trip to Largoneth Castle was the last sight to see before landing at the ruins of the original Mareilon. Before Chuck departed, Anesi gifted him with a sapphire necklace, which was only big enough to fit halfway up one talon.
After scouting the ruins of Mareilon, the companions find a building to rest in for the night. During the night, Tyrille, having been overly queasy at being in a structure made of dead wood, fled from the building to sleep inside a living tree beyond the walls of the city. The others awoke to a scratching sound from outside as a grue broke down the door to the room. Cubby wrestled with the intruder, but was easily tossed back. A second grue joined the array. With a FROTZed stone, Stribel warded off the grues. Though the rest of the pack of devilish beasts howled from outside for the rest of the night, none of them dared attempt to enter. Anesi could feel the Great Terror’s fear from Mareilon.
At dawn, Tyrillee returned to them once the grues had departed. The influence of the Great Terror had been so intense here, that the grues were no longer feared normal daylight, though they still keep to the shadows from where they tossed rocks in hope that their victims would flee into a dark building. Anesi’s right thigh was injured from the barrage. To counter the grue attacks, one grue found himself FROTZed, while another VAXUMed grue became of assistance, pummeling the other grues with rocks. Even the huge grue that dared to come out into the sunlight found itself IZYUKed. Outside the city, Stribel bandaged Anesi’s leg.
Crossing the Backbone Hills for the new Mareilon, they sighted a surmin. Fidget, hoping to kill the rodent, released an arrow at it. In fear, the surmin broke wind on them. Tyrillee was the only one who managed to escape by fleeing into a tree. The others were consumed by the stench and forced to wash themselves in a nearby stream.
Tyrillee returned, bringing Gryphon’s Breath flowers with her to heal Anesi’s wounds. Fidget aided his friend, by crafting a crutch for him to use. The six Servants of the Terrors were seen in the skies, moving southward.
The civilians of the new Mareilon did not greet them in a friendly manner. Everyone was paranoid of them. The party entered the Elvenhome Bar and Grill where the owner Letitia Rhonda waited on them. She recognized Stribel, but was initially silent about them as he did his best to ignore her as though they had never met before. While being waited on, a brawl broke out between the party and a group of miners at the inn when they wanted to teach Cubby a lesson. When one of the miner’s swords struck into her new counter, she joined in, flinging dishes in her anger at anything that moved. Against better discretion, Anesi VAXUMed everyone in the room in an attempt to cease the brawl. But this spell was one too many—the Servants of the Terror sensed his use of magic and came for him.
The Servants, in the forms of giant nabiz, were too large to enter the inn, but instead shook its foundations with tremendous blows as one of the creatures widened its jaw to the height of the structure and to consume the entire thing. Everyone within escaped through the back kitchen door into the alley. The lead miner found himself eaten by one of the nabiz-formed Servants.
Chaos seized Mareilon. It was already too late to save the poor city. Destruction and ruin was everyone. Two of the Servants demolished the tavern, smashing down the walls on three sides, while great swaths of wreckage marked the passage of the other four through the city. To destroy the nabiz within the city, Anesi casted RADNOG on the inn, defeating two of the Servants with the massive five. But the hungry flames spread to the next building and the next, until the entire city was aflame. Thus the second Mareilon died just like the first.
Letitia led the group to her home, where she led them to a trapdoor in her bedroom closet. Anesi, Fidget, Cubby, Tyrillee, and Stribel descended the ladder. Letitia stayed behind to quickly gather her belongs; she intended to leave the city by another route.
The party found themselves in the Great Underground Highway. While travelling to Miznia along the ancient roadway, the Great Terror began to directly see Anesi out, speaking into his mind with fear and terrible visions, before leaving. To protect himself, Anesi memorized three spells. At the highway exit, they emerged at the ruins of Dolo Finis, the old capital of Miznia, encroached by massive amounts of vegetation.
Their arrival was greeted by a swarm of the carnivorous spiderflowers that drifted down on the wind. Anesi REZROVed the door of a ruined estate in an attempt to escape them, but found that its roof was open and the spiderflowers descended within, and formed a web. This was the first attempt of the Terror to force Anesi into wasting his stored spells. The young enchanter destroyed them with RADNOG, then they fled into a courtyard. The portcullis fell down behind them, trapping them in as snakes poured out from the well. Anesi IZYUKed to the wheelhouse high above to reopen the portcullis. To return to lower grounds, it was necessary for him to memorize additional spells. When he took out his spellbook, a savage downdraft knocked him down.
The four surviving Servants of the Terror, now in bird form, surrounded Anesi. In order to tempt Anesi, the Great Terror assumed the form his own father, Choboz. Though an illusion, Anesi believed that this was his father who had willingly bowed down to the service of the Terror in exchange for magic power. Anesi refused to serve the demon, repelling him with a concentrated FROTZ.
At that moment, Chuck and nearly twenty other of his dragon friends arrived to fight against the Servants of the Terror. The dragon had showed them the sapphires Anesi had given him and insisted that they meet him. One their way, they had spotted the quartet cruising the coastline of the Shallow Sea and pursued. The dragons were able to defeat the four, but the Terror continued to fight on, seizing Anesi by the throat. Still assuming the form of Choboz, though a charred and blackened image, the Terror tried to instill fear into Anesi.
Before stabbing the Terror with a small dagger in the wrist, Anesi replied with the famous lines, “I do fear you. But it’s not fear that makes you strong, but submission to fear.” The Terror let Anesi go and the others of his party assaulted the demon as well.
It was then that Stribel Wartsworth revealed his true appearance, transforming from the dwarf-like Humble Bellows into an aged wizard. His Dimwit puppet became his spellbook. The powerful wizard unleashed the spell he had been preparing, GUNCHO. While the spell hurled the evil Krill into another world, the Terror shrugged it off like an oversized suit.
Anesi quickly memorized the YONK spell and released it upon Tyrillee. While the dryad drew near to a morgia tree, Cubby took hold of the Terror and threw it to Tyrillee. The dryad encoiled her arms around the demon and then vanished inside the tree. She reappeared alone, leaving the Terror behind inside the world within the tree. It now had an entire world all to itself.
After the terror had been defeated, the companions parted ways. Tyrillee remained at Miznia. There was something about the morgia trees, which did not grow in the north that fascinated her, and she wanted time to play among them before she began a search for the rest of the dryads.
Chuck the dragon flew the rest home, taking the scenic route up the eastern coast along the Flathead Ocean. When they flew over Borphee, Cubby and Fidget suddenly asked to be let off. Cubby wanted to visit old haunts and old friends along the harbor, and Fidget wanted to sample the experiences of a truly big city had to offer while he had the advantage of a guide. He had no family to go home to anyway.
Anesi and Stribel were dropped off at the home of Choboz and Mildi. In the time that they had been away, the Thriff wizards had made improvements on the property: more land had been cleaned, the house was painted and trimmed, new rooms had been built, a bright new barn stood were the old one had been, and an elaborate series of pipes and pimps carried fresh water from the creek right into the house. Anesi was able to finally converse with his grandfather, who explained to the young enchanter everything that he had done in the past several years.
Fidget later returned via an AIMFIZ spell. He suggested hunting for the Hoards of the Seven Servants, but the results of this scavenger hunt to this date is still unknown, other than the lair nearest to Anesi’s home was used by the family. Finister returned to Orexia, but the other six wizards stayed with Anesi and his family as long as they were needed.
Anesi was enrolled at Galepath University. During his period of attendance (which was cut short because of the End of the First Age of Magic), enchanters and wizards from all over Frobozz went to visit him to hear his story and ask him questions about the Great Terror.