Reading, reading and more reading thought Lewin, the current master and head of the society of the wise. It was the society of the wise that controlled the libraries within the capital and trained the scribes that served kings and other influential people of the royal and noble lineages. It was also their council that controlled the book and scroll trade of the kingdom, and as the head of the society, it was Lewin's job to hold the council meetings and decide their members. But now he worked on a completely different job.

It was to study recent phenomenons happening over the kingdom's borders. Many of the citizen's didn't know that the kingdom was maybe the only one that existed on this world. And even thought it is called a kingdom, it was closer to an empire formed by uniting three kingdoms under the rule of the current king. But back to the phenomenons. The first to happen was 9 months ago in the east. On a regular day no different from the others that region saw, a column of golden smoke rose in horizon with two months later a thief king calling himself Attila emerged. It was then that the society was first tasked to research this. But it was useless, they found nothing that even hinted of that kinda thing happening in the past, legends, myths, tales or even folklore. And to twist the knife in the wound, they found no tribe, clan, society, kingdom, nobility faction or other human faction that were called "the Huns" in their books nor any language, text or writing they could refer to, almost like they had never existed in the world.

Then the second column happened, rising black over the forest in the west about 6 months ago, causing the animals grow larger, stronger and faster and forcing the kingdom to fortify the out-post in the west. It was then Lewin himself was forced to take the task of researching these occurrences. But yet again nothing was found. Tiresome work with no result, but Lewin had the suspicion that these would not be the last of the smoke columns. As said this kingdom was last thought to exist in the world as it was surrounded by impenetrable forest in west, impassable desert in east, frozen wasteland in south and always stormy seas in north that are so called dead-zones that kill all those who try to cross them. Of course this is not revealed to the public and those in power are only told of one these problem areas at the time, regarding on what corner of the empire they happen to be in. This of course feeds the curiosity of the nobles who want to be the one to solve the mystery of the forest/sea/wasteland/desert and they happily send men to die in there. But if two of the columns happened over these areas, sure the two remaining zones will experience them too? Maybe it was related to the other races said to have inhabit the world beyond the dead-zones, but there are no records of their civilizations or even them themselves, only half-breeds.

Lewin's mind went back to the cover up. The nobles and merchants are confused by making the kingdoms appear as autonomous as possible, while still being ruled by one man, thus causing most people think that there are two more kingdoms next to the one they live in, but actually they are just provinces of the empire. The matter of who rule is often debated hotly, but what do common man care of the kings and nobles? To them it is the taxes that matter and lowly merchants and nobles are as confused as they are, as what chances do they have to meet the king? Surveys reveal that some cities are places where ten different men are thought to be kings, as who sits on the throne changes depending the area of town you're standing in. Also, the constant civil wars waged by wannabe emperors and others who found out the truth makes people think that we sometimes war against neighboring countries, increasing the belief in them, as who would be crazy enough to have near annual wars with themselves? Well, the humans would. Only the elites of nobles, merchants and wise men know of the four dead-zones, other races and the empire and its true king.

As he was deep in thought, one of the apprentices runs in the room looking out of breath and out of his mind. Lewin could guess what he was going to tell him. The apprentice opened his mouth after gulping and said: "Third column has been seen over the north, in the Misty seas. Lewin simply sighted as he thought the calamities that would follow this and the last column.