The Floor and the Ceiling

Once upon a time in a land of fantasy, the wizard population became so crowded that they were forced to live in cramped two-story apartment complexes. Wizard life was mundane at best, but the good were still separated from the evil. Two particularly nasty wizards, at one point, lived in the same decrepit sorcerers brownstone. One mage’s floor was the others ceiling. The downstairs mage was of the Sect of Canard, a troublesome group that spread malicious rumors and caused many problems. The upstairs wizard was of the Ballistic Brotherhood, a hot-tempered guild of sorcerers who were known for their quarrelsome nature.

The Canard wizard, whose name was Grundy, hated the Ballistic wizard, whose name was Tanker. Tanker likewise hated Grundy with furor. Early every morning when Tanker arose from bed, he would jump on the floor with a crash to start his day and then walk to his kitchen with loud, unnecessary stomping to wake Grundy up. Late at night when Grundy knew Tanker was settling in for bed, he would begin to hang pictures, hammering loudly on his walls. This carried on for a very long time, and though neighborly feuds generally calm down after awhile, theirs only became worse.

"Blast that muddled ogre fart!" cursed Grundy one morning, after being rudely awoken by his noisy neighbor. "Blast! Blast! Blast!"

Tanker smiled to himself hearing Grundy having his fit below and poured himself a bowl of Frosted Fairyflakes. Grundy in the meantime schemed to himself for a suitable revenge. Because there was such an overpopulation of sorcerers their magic was strictly regulated. It was highly illegal for a wizard to use magic against another. However, indirect magic use could still be a menace. That night, as Tanker was getting ready for bed, he heard the revolting sound of a nocturnal ornithoflatus that had made its nest in the tree right outside his window. Nocturnal ornithoflatus’ were impossible to get rid of and they would emit their fweeps, blurps, spiffts, and bwarps coupled with the stink of egg salad gone bad all night long. Upon further inspection, he realized that someone had enchanted the precise branches to draw the creature to settle right outside his window.

"That puddle of troll snot!" Tanker cursed. "I’ll see that he pays dearly!"

The feathered pest answered with a brief squawk and its signature maneuver.

~

The chain of retribution that these actions spawned stretched each wizard to his capacity. One night they both paced the floor in stewing anger. Grundy looking up to his ceiling, cursing and shaking his fist while Tanker looked to his floor, with malice in his eyes. The hatred between the two was so great, that they each weighed the consequences and decided they would face the penalty of using their magic against each other. Grundy took his staff and with dark ominous words, weaved a thick curse on Tanker and shot it into the ceiling. Tanker at the same moment gathered the surrounding energy and used his magic to channel it, with spite, into the floor.

Now, understand, before these two had lived one on top of the other, the ramifications of mixing Canard magic with Ballistic magic were undetermined. One object was filled with malicious magic of two different kinds, Tanker’s floor and Grundy’s ceiling. The two wizards went to bed that night, believing that the other would get his due by morning. Instead, between the planks of wood and plaster something began to take form. The Canard magic and the Ballistic magic spawned a hive, a circular structure, with a long spiky top, separated into three sections. After several hours, movement began to stir within the enclosure.