The old man walked though the city in silence as the light evening rain fell. It was appropriate. His thoughts too were dark and dreary, and filled with regrets. It could be said that the tragedy of the old is that, despite everything, there sill was a time once when they were young, and he certainly believed so. Those that did not forget their youth in their old age or perilously ignore it, tend to be either haunted by it or obsessed with it in one way or another.

It is rare that people reach an elderly age and still hold on to the spirit of their youth, and rarer still when that spirit is still relevant in the age they find themselves in. The times change. People change. The world will change. And the things that don't change often seems to be the ones they wish would. It becomes harder and harder to look forward to a brighter tomorrow, or even to how things are today. And that, not age or honors, is how you really know in your heart that you have become old. Or at least in the opinion of an old man who steadily roamed the streets of the city.

An old man that happened to be a wizard.

He was even wearing a gray robe and matching pointy hat and carrying a wooden staff. Which was actually rather unusual. Not many people who in those days wore such a outfit. Then again, not may people in those days would call themselves wizards anymore. But he wore the outfit anyway. It wasn't that he cared about looking like a wizard though. His wizardyness was not very important to him. Not anymore.

It used to be. Pleroma knows it used to be. It used to be the most important thing to him in the universe. But… well. The times changed. People changed. The world changed. He changed.

So, here he was. Walking in the rain at night. The sound of the cobblestones as his feet and staff echoed through the street, though he saw none to hear it save himself. Funny… he remembered a time when walking on cobblestone was the norm not the exception. He looked at the lamps lighting his path. All electric. Not a magelight to be found. Not that they were all that common even in his day, he thought. You needed a magic user to recharge them, and their just weren't enough in most districts. At least there were no cars out. Sputtering noisy things.

Still, he liked this city. Most wizards did, he thought, it was old fashioned and distinguished for one. Wizards love old fashioned and distinguished. Though he mostly just liked it because of the fond memories of his youth. This was, at one time, the site of the premiere university for wizards. It's not anymore. Oh sure, the university was still there, but it wasn't the same. Or maybe wizards just weren't the same. That was probably closer to the truth. But they never were quite ever what he wanted were they?

By the time he had been born the days of the lone wizard or wandering magician was long over. Still, the exaggerated tales of heroism, guile, and self-taught power that predominated his childhood were still alive in his mind and his heart. Those were the days of the organized and educated wizard who studied and taught in hollowed halls flooded with magic and magical things. Perhaps they were a far cry from the tales he had been so enraptured by as a child, but those days had their own special charm.

In reality he had to admit it was really ended up being a lot of studying and perpetration, doing things like tediously dealing with synergizing with essences, figuring out rune bindings, organizing rune arrays, optimizing spell algorithms, figuring out material catalysts, and so on. But it was still magic, and it still occupied it's own little bubble of prestige and wonder. Magic could, and did, still do wondrous things, and it was still something special. Not that it still didn't he supposed, but it was different now.

Now? For all practical purposes technology caught up in almost every area. Why take the time to learn a light spell when a flashlight would provide more light for cheaper? Why bother learning how to cast fireballs when guns were so much easier, less messy, and more lethal? Why bother enchanting things when it can't be mass produced? What magic was still used was different to. A lot of the old traditional way magic worked were found to be inefficient and dangerous. Casting big fancy spells is much more troublesome then other ways of using magic. Most “magic†done since was in the form of advanced devices that use the basic principles to accomplish the same effects with much less effort. Even the word “magic†was becoming less and less popular as a description.

He sighed. But no. All that wasn't the real problem he had, was it? If it were just that the world had moved on from him and his dreams though, it might not have bothered him quite as much. No, that wasn't the core of his regret. Magic was still around after all. Wizards had their time in the sun, but their legacy would live on. No, his problem was more personal then that. It wasn't that he felt he was simply a relic of a time long past, it's that for the longest time, he didn't even recognize it. For a long time he felt of himself as the wise mentor even. A person who was in charge, who knew best, who had the whole world figured out, who was fighting for something worth fighting for.

He had said and done things in the name of “the greater good†that he realized now were really just for the sake of his own private myopia. He had manipulated people, broke many ethical principles, gotten involved in many conflicts, risen through the ranks of wizard society. All to have all his work made pointless. All to watch the society become more and more old fashioned and insular, mostly fall into in-fighting and pettiness. Then again maybe it was always like that and he just didn't notice?

He shook his head. He didn't have the energy to go through every mistake in his life. No, he was here, in the rain, because of one mistake in particular. A former student of his actually, back when he was teaching at the same university that thought him. A very problematic student.