January 5th, 9:00 PM, Cairo, Egypt, the villa of Venetian explorer and wizard Niccolò de' Conti:
Finishing a late supper after a long day of recording accounts of his travels throughout India, China, Mesopotamia, and North Africa in one of his several travel journals, de' Conti is suddenly jolted to attention by a magical alarm spell triggered to ring in his mind if his family home in Venice were ever threatened by fire or other catastrophe...
A fire at the Palazzo de' Conti!? I will go there at once to see what can be done...
Rising from the table where he had been dining alone, the explorer-wizard checks to make sure his decanter of endless water is in place on his harness, then utters the incantation to teleport from Cairo to a seastack in the Mediterranean midway between Egypt and Italy, and from there on to Venice, where he is horrified to find the City of Bridges on fire in several places, and the great fire dragon Wormwood hovering several hundred feet above the Cathedral of San Lorenzo!
He makes the sign of the cross and casts a spell to allow him to fly, soaring up above the rooftops, but keeping the tower of a Palazzo between the dragon and himself as concealment...
Flying closer in spite of the growing dread that grips him the closer he gets to the great red dragon, de' Conti peers from around the side of the palace tower at the crimson winged nightmare hovering above the Cathedral and belching flames at the slate shingled roof!
After what seems like an eternity, he sees a ghostly figure rise up through the roof of the Cathedral, which he identifies as the Ghost of Marco Polo, his boyhood hero! An exclamation of exaltation escapes his awed lips! It is the Ghost of Marco Polo, rebuking the dragon in its native tongue! And now he leads the beast on a merry chase to the south!
HAHAHA!! BRAVO, MARCO POLO!! BRAVO!! HAHA!!