Tom ran through the trees splashing through puddles, his breath barely coming. He had thought as most people think, that they are reasonably fit. Running for your life multiple times in one day helps a person face the reality of their fitness. He ducked behind a tree slumping to the ground to try and catch his breath.

The tree he was sitting at the base of exploded just above where he was slouched, high enough that if he had still been standing he would be a head shorter.

Dazed Tom was was sent sprawling into the murky water nearby. Fueled by nothing but andrenaline Tom pulled himself under some debris, praying to the gods who had taken his offerings his whole life that maybe the warband would not spot him.

Jogging up to the still smoldering stump, a few feet from him, the dozen soldiers in heavy plate and laden down with gear stopped and spread out across the small island while another jogged along the patch of land continuing further into the swamp.

How anyone moved with that much weight was a mystery, much less with speed and relentlessness his pursuers had shown.

"I don't see any tracks this way" called the soldier who had continued ahead.

"You can't hide from me boy" called the warmage.

Tall and greying while wearing a gray coat over smaller and less bulky plate armor, this man looked nothing like the mages in the stories Tom was read. Altogether too many muscles and no beard. The mage stalked around the edges of the water the very ground drying out near where he stepped.

Just as the soldiers were starting to range closer to his debris pile and into the water a rustling of plants and a hooded figure ran off into the woods just at the edge of the warriors sight. They all ran after the figure as a fireball flew above their heads and detonated near another copse of trees the hooded figure had ran through.

Within hearing distant he heard shouts and curses, signs that maybe whoever had led them away might not be as dead as he was sure to be.

After the longest 5 minutes of Toms life he stumbled out of the brown water and ran throught the paths he had wandered his whole life. Hitting branches and tripping in puddles he stumbled his way to his home. His real home not the shack in town that everyone knew about and occasionaly robbed.

The hidden clearing behind several large and anciet swamp trees and bushes was the most beautiful thing in the whole world. A house untouched. Made from baboo with dried grass for a roof it was much larger than one man alone might need but like him his house was larger than the life he seamed to live.

The crystal pool in the center of the clearing had barely a ripple and the bamboo fence holding back the undergrowth looked sound.

In the door and to the back of the room Tom went and fell on his bed the matress filled with marsh raptor feather. Darkness came quickly.

When tom woke up still in pain from burns scrapes and what definitely felt like a concusion, or at least what a concussion should feel like, he sat up. Eyes still blurry he froze realizing that a hooded figure was sitting at his table.

Not just any hooded figure but the one who had led off the pursuit of the soldiers and the war mage. The reason he had ended up running for his life from the town. A town he could now never go back to.

"Your awake" a voice deep came from the hooded man turning to face Tom. As he turned a long and flat mouth full of teeth continue to speak.

"We need to talk."