“Hurry, Leanor, we’ve gotta go!” yelled the wizard, carrying his most valuable tomes down his Tower. Descending from the third floor, where his wizardly studies and experiments were practiced, he handed the heavy books down to a servant. Not hearing the sound of his apprentice coming, he went back up the stone stairs, puffing in annoyance.

“Eeek! Master, wait-” She began saying when he caught a hold of her by the scruff of her gray robe, and started pulling the gaunt blonde girl down the tower.

“You’ve had time enough to decide, and our carts are already encumbered, girl. I have a strong feeling that we should not tarry here any longer.”

The raven-haired wizard kept it all business-like, but he felt a pang of loss as he made his way down the tower - his tower. Each block of stone carefully warded by his hand, and enchanted with his strongest enchantments. It truly was a work of love, but he was leaving all his lovely dark-wood lair behind him.

The image many people had of wizards was that they were an arrogant breed of loner magicians that stayed isolated in their mighty towers, unconcerned with the affairs of others. People, unfortunately, weren’t far from the mark on this one. Though other mages, like wandering mages and hedge witches were more involved with the common man, those of the Wizardly Order were extremely recluse. And for that, the wizard thought, they would all suffer.

He exited his beloved tower to a cold night through the semi-open double doors, to meet with the rest of his entourage by the light of torches. There were a handful of servants, maids and footmen responsible for maintaining the property, four avowed warriors, responsible for security - never a bad idea, even with all the wards and spells around a tower, and a couple of hunters, all of them in his trust. They were gathered around two horse-pulled carts, bulging with supplies and the most valuable possessions of his hold, the horses shivering with the low temperature. Everyone looked expectantly at them as they finally left the four story-high building.

Besides the common or normal people - the term used depending on if who was using it had magic or not, usually, stood a couple more of practitioners, his second and barely gifted apprentice, and his closest ally and neighbor, the hedge witch Lowa, wearing a number of cumbersome pelts in her small frame to keep the chill away.

“You took your time, Garner. I feel like there’s a target on my back, sitting around here.” complained the elderly and slightly hunchback woman, her movement causing the many vials and potions she carry inside her cloak to clink, as they often did.

“Sorry, Lowa. Just give me another minute.” he answered, turning to his Tower and chanting to set all his traps in place.

“Okay, we’re going now.” He said decisively, walking onward without looking back, and making his people start following him, with a couple of servants jumping up on their seats and driving the carts.

“Master Garner,” one of his hunters approached him, riding a horse, and said tersely, “we’ll scout ahead for any signs of trouble.”

“Alright. I would cast a spell of a silence, but you-”

“Don’t need it.” the woodsman ended the phrase sullenly, looking pointedly at him. Garner grinned, and the man left with his companion by his side. Prickly subordinates were the best fun.

They took the main road for now, making good time in the paved path. The guards ringed the formation, a second line of protection besides the distant hunters that ranged on both sides of the road, making sure the woods were free of would-be ambushers. Still, Garner was glad that here, at least, workers still periodically cut down the bushes close to the road. No need to make it too easy for bandits.

Though a wizard could call on great power, it was all moot if they got an arrow to the neck or a bullet before they started casting. That was one of the many reasons why wizards rarely bothered leaving their safe and guarded towers.

Only the drivers were up on the carts, guiding the powerful beasts of burden. Even the elderly Lowa walked, showing no apparent difficulty. Though she was old, old enough that it showed, even with the magic running inside her, the witch was far from frail. As a hedge witch, her main occupations had been as a healer and midwife to all the neighboring villages. Dead gods, she had probably eased to life half the adult population living around her, and cured the other half from one illness or other.

And still, she and I better run than expect any help from these folks in the coming days, Garner thought angrily, though he couldn’t really blame most of the helpless villagers, some who would even want to help if they could. It hadn’t began yet, but they both had seen the writing on the walls, and the glares upon their backs when they visited formerly friendly villages and towns - some of them believed the hateful rhetoric that was being spread against the Realm, even in nearby Arburgh, the biggest city in the region.

A purge would come soon, and they couldn’t stop it from Garner’s Tower, a purge through the South targeting Wizards and any mages suspected to deal with them. The movement stirred from the central lands of the Realm, and the King hadn’t done much to tamper it down as the influence of the Wizards had been long looked upon with displeasure by the royals, despite the Wizard’s role in the funding of the Realm, many decades ago. Garner shook the heavy thoughts off his head for a moment, and payed attention to the apparently carefree conversation Lowa was having with his apprentices.

“Herblore, children, that’s something you must learn! I know these stuffy indoor wizard-types don’t like going out into the woods, but there’s great power in nature, if you care to learn it.”

Leanor glanced at her uncertainly, her short blond hair swaying slightly as she shook her head at the notion of going outdoors, but Tealdin drank every word Lowa said, his gray eyes not blinking as the witch lectured them. “Truly, Elder? Could I do it?”

“Of course! Rituals and potion-making don’t require great energy from practitioners themselves, Tealdin, but mostly from natural ingredients.”

“Maybe you could give me some lessons later, Elder…” He said, and Lowa happily agreed. The brown-haired boy looked at him inquiringly, and Garner nodded his agreement, making Tealdin smile. That was one of the traits that led him to accept the boy as an apprentice despite his meager magic potential - the hunger for all kinds of knowledge. Jack of all trades, and master of none, most mages muttered about apprentices such as the boy, but Garner saw it differently.

Lowa, for example, had been a formidable mage, despite not having all the magical energy one could wish for, and she hadn’t even focused on the kind of spells that were commonly understood as “combat magic”. Sparring against her was a painful experience, and the elder used every trick in the book to make up for her physical condition in her advanced age nowadays. Garner himself had quite a few ares he’d dabbled in besides his specialty, enchanting. Raw power was great, but versatility was a must, in his opinion.

Garner was relieved that his apprentices seemed to be holding up just fine under the looming pressure of the revival of the old witch-hunts, a time when magic was not accepted and had been reviled and shunned. It was not that Lowa or the teenagers were unconcerned, for that would be foolish, but that tried to brush it off the best they could, and maintain conversation. Well, maybe Leanor wasn’t. The girl did really have a one-track mind, and it rarely focused on anything but her studies.

“Master Garner.” his scarred chief warrior said as he approached him, towering over Garner’s normal stature. Though the man’s hair was beginning to thin and gray, he still had an intimidating muscular shape, and exerted still a sense of barely controlled violence. “If you could please explain to me again why we’re leaving our tower and heading to that abandoned relic… If we expect violence, we should be fortifying it for a siege, not chancing it into the roads.”

“I know you don’t care much for magic besides the one that you can swing your sword with, or the one you have to duck away from, but that old ‘relic’ is a powerful magical anchor and a pretty good fortification as well.” He replied to his avowed man, whose name was ‘Chief’. Well, it actually wasn’t, but people who knew his actual name pretended otherwise.

“How so, Master?” the man continued doggedly demanding of his employer.

I should have included a vow of blind obedience, Garner thought, huffing in mild annoyance. Even so, he explained, not without sarcasm, “You know those stars ‘thingies’ wizards like so much, Chief? Yeah, they’re pentagrams, forms specially attuned to magic. That tower is a part of a great pentagram that encompasses all of the Realm, and powers the banishment spell to this day. It’ll help us a lot more than the other warriors you wanted us to wait for.”

Chief grunted, not impressed with the information, and replied, “If it’s all the same to you, Master, I instructed them to head there too.”

“Alright, Chief. I won’t deny that more warriors will be useful. The Third Spire is a lot bigger than our humble tower.”

The truth was that Garner hoped fervently that more wizards would heed his warning and come to the old tower, but even his friends could be really stubborn about leaving their holds. The party continued on its way to the old tower while the practitioners talked about this and that, and the common folk huddled together. From time to time, the hunters returned to say the path was cleared. It was going to be a three days journey to the almost forgotten place of power.

Though they tried to keep up a lively talk, everyone was tense. The apprentices didn’t know exactly what was going on, but if it convinced two experienced mages to leave their homes and head for safety, it couldn’t be any good. Leanor went closer to her colleague while the others talked about acquaintances, and asked, “What do you know about it, Tealdin? Why have we departed in the middle of the night?”

“Leanor.” he greeted her, a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention of the older apprentice, who usually ignored him and everything else completely if it wasn’t related to her chosen field of magic - warding. “Haven’t you heard the villagers talking? There was unrest in Lothar, and they blamed all their problems on the wizards. They are leading a purge.” He tried to explain, to clear the air of befuddlement the girl had since they left their Master’s Tower. “And the movement is rumored to have also shown strong anti-mage feeling. I heard there have even been some lynchings from mages not even close to the Wizardly Order…”

She scowled at him, “And what do we have to do with with these rioters, Tealdin?”.

Tealdin shook his head in subtle reproach at her complete lack of knowledge of the affairs of common men, even though they were affecting them gravely. “Well, Leanor, they are spearheaded by the Lotharians, who are pretty powerful. Lothar’s close to the capital, and they have influence and power that reaches even backward lands like ours. Also, their technology can threaten even High Wizards, if they are not careful. Or say they say…”

“As if…” she muttered back. Leanor came from a family of wizards, and the notion of their complete superiority was impressed at her mind since a young age.

Catching the last part of the discussion, Garner butted in, “You would do well to heed what the common man is up to, girl. Many wizards and mages greater than us have found that prejudice can be lethal.” The girl in question snorted at him - not a very deferential apprentice at all. The Master and Tealdin, the sole apprentice dotted with any common sense, shared a long suffering look.

The group carried on walking through the night nonstop, having eaten dinner before departing, but one of the servants, the majordomo, somehow managed to arrange a little snack for everyone on the way.

“And they call us mages, Romer! You make the real magic!” complimented Garner effusively, after being fed just as he was beginning to hunger. The low-key head of staff bowed in acknowledgment, and went back to walking with the other servants. The short man kept an iron grip on his underlings, demanding the best behavior and etiquette. No one complained, though, as Garner’s generous wages made up for the strict discipline.

After hours walking under the dark skies with only torch and moonlight, the scouts returned and told Garner and Lowa of a good clearing to make camp. After briefly conferring, the pair decided it was okay to rest there, as long as they posted a guard.

The maids and footmen efficiently set up the camp under the keen eye of Romer, the majordomo, while the hunters started dressing a buck and a couple of rabbits they had hunted when the opportunity arose. The ancient Lowa easily lighted the fire with a practiced spell to smoke the meat, while Garner taught his wards the theory and practice of a spell to diffuse the smoke, pointing out its importance even if it was simple. They ate the roasted meat with chunks of hard-bread, and then gradually started retiring for the night.

Dawn was almost arriving, and the servants had gone to sleep in their tents with the off-duty guards, when the mages’ sleep was interrupted by the buzzing of many message spells. The apprentices awakened too and were overwhelmed by the sheer number of messages, and the speed they disgorged their contents. Most of them were codified. While the youngsters were confused, Garner and Lowa were uncommonly grim while reading and deciphering the messages.

Soon, the entire camp got wind of what was going on, and everyone gathered around the two practitioners to learn what had happened. After the flood of message spells slowed down, they turned to their companions.

“It seems that all the Towers close to us, and many besides them, were attacked just now.” said Lowa, frowning. “A fair number of wizards hasn’t sent news of their situation. This might have been one of the bloodiest nights for your Order since I can remember. There are reports that practitioners not even associated with you, and even the barely gifted, have been set upon in some places.”

“Anti-wizard, or anti-magic?” mumbled Tealdin, worried about friends in Arburgh.

Garner grimace widened as he received another magic pulse: the slight but unpleasant feedback of an alarm ward he’d placed at his room in the tower. Grimacing, announced, “Someone just broke into my Tower.”