A century ago, Wellstan was a miserable, blustery place, plagued with bitter winds and constant snowstorms. Then a young córvean woman—the archmage of the local Weather Guild—discovered that the storms were caused by the presence of a particularly strong ley node atop the cliff that overshadowed the town. To manage the location, the Wizard's Tribunal built a tower over the ley node and announced that they would appoint a wizard to reside there.
The people of Wellstan welcomed the security and resources a wizard would bring to their humble community. That is, until they discovered who had been given stewardship over the tower—the archmage of the Weather Guild herself. Though a talented magical practitioner, she was criticized by the townspeople for having the absent-mindedness of a sparrow. All watched with a mix of anxiety and trepidation as she was granted a staff, the coveted title of wizard, and residence at the newly-built tower as a reward for her discovery.
Nevertheless, the Sparrow-minded Mage sought to solve the town's weather problems to prove herself worthy of the townspeople's admiration. She intended to make the node larger and more stable so as to gain access to the necessary raw mana to accomplish her goals. She delved fearlessly into the secrets of the ley node, employing the assistance of an ever-increasing workforce of marids. Alas, her critics proved to be right about her absent-mindedness, and it took only one forgotten rune in a circle of confinement to spell disaster for the project.
The latest addition to her team was an ancient marid, tasked with opening up the ley node to become a permanent gate to the Fey Realm. But when he discovered his confinement circle was incomplete, he took it upon himself to alter what was requested of him in a single—yet crucial—detail; instead of opening the ley node to the Fey Realm, he used the arcane device built with the labor of his people to open a permanent gate to the Elemental Plane of Water so that they might come and go freely, and not remain simple laborers.
Before the Sparrow-minded Mage realized her error, the lower floors of the tower were flooded and the foundations cracked, threatening to topple the magnificent structure and flood the town in the resulting disaster.
Fortunately for the wizard, she was able to dramatically reduce the size of the portal and banish the marids before it was too late. Unfortunately, she had to buy the safety of the townspeople with the years of her own life. As she aged, the color fled from most of her feathers and she was reduced to an appearance that matched her nickname.
The people of Wellstan had mixed feelings about her after that. Some stoically claimed that she had done nothing but clean up her own mess, and therefore deserved no gratitude. Others saw the mistake as an honest error, and claimed that had she been anything less than an extraordinary wizard the townsfolk would all be dead. Either way, the town had gained a new waterfall, and the attention of the surrounding lands, which brought notoriety, tourism, and ultimately a flourishing guild-presence for weather mages.
By special arrangement, the Wizard's Tribunal employed the townsfolk to reinforce the tower's foundations, thereby avoiding the complications of extra-planar labor, and reassuring the townspeople that the structure was sound once again. Soon the Weather Guild was able to commission the construction of a fully-fledged academy, and the first graduating class of scholar magicians made it their personal duty to regulate the town's weather.
In the end, the Sparrow-minded Mage had realized her goals, if not in the way she intended. For this reason, the grateful citizens of Wellstan renamed their city Sparrowville (though some of the older, more bitter generation still hold fast to "Wellstan"), and they have enjoyed a profitable relationship with the Weather Academy ever since.
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