I was apprenticed to the Forest Mystic for the standard thirteen years. I learned all of the common mystic skills in the first five years or so. The last eight years were spent learning the specific skills of a forest mystic. Being apprenticed to THE Forest Mystic had it’s advantages, but also it’s faults. He could show some tricks, explain things only he knew about. But he expected a level of perfection that even master mystics could not attain. He pushed me until I could do something exactly as it should be done. And for that I will forever be in his debt.

The one experience I had in all the time I was with the Forest Mystic which defined my time with him was when we were asked to find a missing child. The Forest Mystic and I searched for two days straight without finding a single thing. On the third day I told the Forest Mystic I wanted to try something different. The Forest Mystic asked, “What are you going to do that I didn’t teach you how to do?” I said, “I just have a hunch, there’s something I want to try.” He reluctantly agreed.

An idea had occurred to me as we looked for the child. An idea that was hard for me to accept. The idea was that I knew where the child was. As we walked around I had these feelings of, for a better word, Truth. Of course such talk made me extremely nervous given the prophecy about The One who would See the Truth. And here I was, Seeing the Truth. The only way to know if it were true would be to put it to the test.

I walked directly to where the child was trapped in a bog. I could give no explanation for what I’d done other that, “I Saw the Truth as we’d looked for the child. Eventually THE truth had occurred to me. As I explained this to the Forest Mystic he shook his head. “It’s clear,” he hesitated, “you’re THE One. THE One. We must inform the council at once.

Once the council was notified I new my life would never be the same. But then I Knew the Truth of the situation, intuitively. Such was to be my fate, to be The Mystic of Cascadia.