The market in the morning is the best. The morning sun peaking over the roof of the houses, the people milling about setting up their carts and opening their stalls for the day's business, and the smells. Oh the sweet, sweet smell of fresh baked bread strait out of the stone ovens and right out into the streets. The smell seems to attract all manner of people from their homes, bringing the market square to life every morning.

The baker's daughter runs the cart every morning, a young woman who is slightly plump from all the tasting she has done in her father's kitchen simply add to her personality, her rosy cheeks glowing in the soft sunlight, a kind smile on her face. She always looks to the northern corner of the market square, waiting for the first handful of early waking workers to shamble into view. This is when I make my move.

I moved slowly, sticking to the shadows of the alleyways that ring the square. Her eyes even seem to smile as she awaits the first few people to wander into sight. I move up the closest alley to the stall, making sure to keep as quite as possible. I can see her from the shadows; she is keeping a close eye on the cart and glances around every now and again, waiting. As she turned her head, I made my move.

One single loaf of bread slides out from the far side of the stack, out of her sight, and into my eager, waiting hands. As I run back into the alleyway, into the shadows, I begin to chomp down on my prize. I run through the dark corridors that connect, and at the same time, separate the city of Arcadia. By the time I had reached my destination half of the loaf of bread is gone, sliding down my throat like butter.

The street in front of me is empty, so I make a mad dash across hoping to not be seen by any more people than is necessary. Slipping in between two buildings, I push the door on the side of one of them ever so slightly open. Looking in reveals what I expected to find, a large man leaning back in a wooden chair in front of a low burning fire, a pot of bubbling gruel hanging in the fireplace to cook. I step inside and close the door softly behind me, making sure not to wake the sleeping giant of a man.

Sneaking throughout the building, I manage to make it past the sleeping man, down the narrow hallway, and up the stairs. Nevertheless, on the last step, a loud squeaking floorboard gives me away. A door down below slams open and I know that I don't have much time. I move as quickly as I dared down the upstairs hallway and made it to one of the far rooms. I looked back and could see the top of a person's massive poof of hair. I quickly slipped into the room and closed the door behind me softly. I turned around and stood in shock. The room is lined with small bed frames; each one has a small straw mattress sitting on it. Nobody was in the beds. I was the only one in the room. "This is bad..." was all I managed to say when the door behind me opened sharply and the thin figure of a woman filled the doorway.

"Where have you been Alexander? Not out stealing bread again, I hope?" her stern voice echoing deep in my ears. She looked around me and I tried desperately to hide the leftover half of my loaf of bread from her, but she could easily see it around my small body.

"You little thief! I can't believe you would do this again Alexander! You will be severally punished young man! Now march down stairs and get cleaned up. When you are done, you will begin cleaning the wash bins and after that, you will clean every pot and pan in that kitchen." She said, turning away and beginning to walk down the hallway.

"But what about my breakfast?" I cried, my small body trembling in fear of the woman before me.  

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you snuck off and stole that bread. As further punishment, that will be your only meal for today. Tomorrow, you will march yourself strait down to the baker's shop and apologize for what you did today. But for now, get cleaned up and start cleaning. If you finish cleaning what I have already told you to clean then come find me and we will find something else for you to work on." She turned and walked away, leaving me alone to contemplate my punishment.

 

 

"This isn't fair." I complained as I washed what seemed to be the millionth pot from the kitchen. My unkempt black hair was wrapped under a bandana and an adult sized apron had been folded and wrapped around me so that it didn't drag the ground.

"Next time you decide to steal some bread, think about the consequences of your actions before you do them." commented the large man who I had snuck past earlier. He and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Mitts, are the owners and caretakers of the orphanage for this part of town, of which I am currently a charge of. If only I was old enough to leave this horrid place! I would never have to listen to anybody but myself ever again!

I scrubbed the dishes and polished the pots until they shinned, then I went outside and assisted one of the assistant caretakers, a young woman by the name of Genn, in washing bed sheets and hanging them up to dry. As we were working, a man wearing the blue coat of a Mage walked into the front door of the orphanage. As he was opening the door to enter, he looked and our eyes met. He was somewhere in his early forties, grey hair showing through his otherwise dark brown beard. A wide brimmed hat of the same blue color as his coat sat atop his head, shading him from the bright sunlight of midday. His green eyes seemed to bore into me, but he soon looked away and walked inside, letting the door close behind him.

About an hour passes and Mrs. Mitts came out into the yard where we were still hanging sheets and cloths up to dry. She walked up to me and instructed me to take off my bandana and apron and to follow her. She lead me into the common room of the building where the Mage was sitting in one of the wooden chairs that filled the room. "This, Alexander, is Mr. Lotson, a Mage of the Magus Council. He has come to adopt you."

My mind began to reel. We had all heard the stories of Mages adopting orphans to become their assistant. We heard horrible stories of those assistants and how they all wound up dead in horrible experiments. I began to panic and fidgeted nervously in my seat. The Mage noticed this and stood, walking over to me and placing his hand on my shoulder. "You don't have to be afraid of me just because I am a Mage, Alexander. I know you have heard the stories, but I assure you they are not true. Don't be afraid." His voice soothed me, calmed me, and it rang with a truth that I had never heard before in a person's voice before.

Moments later, he had signed the adoption papers and we were walking out the front doors, a wall of children waving goodbye as we parted ways, never to see one another again. As I walked next to Mr. Lotson he began to talk about his wife and how they had tried to have a child of their own, but couldn't. They had adopted another child before, but really wanted another. He told me how when he had seen me in the yard earlier, that he knew I was the one he had come there to find. I was less than thrilled about being adopted and my face gave it away.

"I know you are not exactly happy to have someone come and pull you into a life you didn't get to chose and the fact that it was a Mage probably makes it even worse. But, if you don't like living with us, then I will send you back to the Mitts and you can continue your life there. How does this sound?" His offer took me by surprise and I looked up at the Mage to find he had been looking at me for any response. I simply looked him in the eye and nodded in agreement.

 

As we entered the center of the city, the simple buildings gave way to large, individual mansions that were home to the Mages that studied and congregated at the Magus Council, a large structure of interconnected towers that jutted up from the center of the city like a grand monolith. I eyed the many large homes that we passed, each as grand as the next. After a few more moments of walking, we turned to walk up the stairs of the most modest looking one of the many homes in the area.

Mr. Lotson opened the door and ushered me in, closing the door behind him and hanging up his coat and hat on a standing coat rack next to the door. "I'm home, and I have someone special with me!" He called out through the house. There was a clatter in one of the other rooms and a woman stepped into view just moments later. Her hair was done up in a bun, her blue dress covered by a white apron and a towel was hung over her shoulder. Slender and beautiful, her eyes lit up upon seeing me. She walked over with a smile on her face and bent down to look me in the eyes. In a sweet and almost melodious voice asked, "What is your name, young man?"

"My... My name is Alexander." I said shyly, turning away from her gaze.

"Alexander is a fine name for a young man such as yourself. Now we have four people with names that start with 'A' in our little family. Amanda, come and meet Alexander, dear." She said, calling into the room from which she had just come. A head poked itself around the corner of the room, long black hair that is tied up in braids fell down from the back of her head. She slid out into the room and we stood there looking at one another for a while before she introduced herself.

"My name is Amanda, I-I hope you are happy here with us Alexander." She blushed a little and looked away. Mrs. Lotson walked over to her and pulled her close to her side.

"You two boys are just in time, we just pulled dinner out of the oven and were setting up the table. Come on in and let's eat. I hope you are hungry Alexander." My stomach began to rumble at the slightest thought of food.

We spend hours sitting at the table talking, Mr. and Mrs. Lotson talking about who they were and what they do. Mr. Lotson is the Head Mage of the Conjuration Circle, a position held by the men of his family for the past five hundred years. He told me that he would start teaching Amanda and I magic once we were old enough, and Mrs. Lotson revealed that both Amanda and myself were thirteen years old.

After we had spend the majority of the evening talking, Mrs. Lotson showed me to my room where I would be sleeping. I had my very own room, all to myself! As I was laying down to go to sleep, both Mr. and Mrs. Lotson came in and sat down next to my bed. "I hope you have liked it here with us so far Alexander." Mr. Lotson said, "We both hope that you will be staying with us. We really enjoy having you as a part of our family."

I looked at both of them and nodded my head. "I do like it here. And I don't want to go back to that mean old orphanage." This got a laugh from Mrs. Lotson and a smile from Mr. Lotson. "Then you won't have to go back there ever again. Welcome to our family Alexander." and with that, they left my room and snuffed out the mage lights in the hallway, bringing darkness into the home. I smiled as I closed my eyes and sighed. "I have a family..."

 

Years passed and I took the name Lotson as my own. My sister and I began out training in magic from our father and from many of the other Mages. My sister, Amanda, showed great prowess with Alchemy and restorative magicks. I, however, showed more skill with martial magic and exhibited the unique ability to nullify magic in an area around me.

When my sister and I had turned eighteen, our mother passed away from an illness that had taken hold over the last few years. Amanda had desperately tried to find a way to heal our mother, but nothing worked. Amanda became depressed and she left home to find new forms of study, saying the Council had taught her everything it could. My father, distraught over the loss of his wife and daughter, began to teach me everything he knew about summoning magic and how to properly use it.

One day, he showed me down to his study in the cellar of our home. He opened a wardrobe that I had assumed was simply filled with dusty old robes, but when he pulled out an old, worn cloak from the wooden confines of the wardrobe, it's power literally charged the air around us, causing it to crackle. The black cloak was tattered and only hung down to about the middle of the back, but the material was strong and it boasted a hood that hung from the neck of the cloak. My father passed this on to me, his one and only son, a cloak that had been passed down through the Lotson family for longer than he could remember. The power of the cloak had been lost to time, but my father was sure I could unlock its secrets again. This would be the last thing he did before he died in his sleep of a illness called 'grief'.    

I continued my studies at the Magus Council complex, living in my family's home that was once full, but now felt hollow and empty. Amanda stopped sending letters back home after she received news of our father's death, leaving an even greater hole in my life than there already was. Over the next few years, I began to understand the cloaks powers and started to wonder how such a powerful item got made in the first place.

I proved myself a powerful Mage in my own right, enough so that the Council started to hire me to do jobs for them, from tracking down rogue spellcasters to settling disputes with other Mage Guilds. One day, a message came to me instructing me to meet the leader of the Magus Council in his quarters that day. When I arrived, however, it was not just myself he wished to see. In the room with us was another Mage, he didn't look familiar to me at all. He was introduced as the leader of a prominent Mage Guild called 'Dragon's Flame'.

"We have a problem Alexander, as you could probably already tell, and we need your specific set of skills to track down this problem and deal with it." Said Magnus III, head of the Magus Council, said with a calm voice. He turned to me and his face became most serious. "According to this gentleman here with us we are dealing with something we have not seen in over three thousand years."

"Sir, if I might ask, what could be of such grave importance that you would call me up to your chamber personally?" I asked, looking into the stern eyes of the wizened old Mage before me.

"Your target is a defiler of life and death. They have stolen several powerful artifacts already, and are using them to undo the laws of our very world."

"You don't mean-"

"Yes, my dear boy. A Necromancer has appeared in our land after thousands of years and you must put a stop to them before they can disrupt the very laws of nature. A servant will be waiting for you outside with a satchel full of supplies and the necessary details on the whereabouts of this Necromancer. Now go, and fulfill your duty to not only this Council, but to the world."

His words echoed through the room and laid themselves deep within my mind. With a duty placed upon me and the honor and expectations of my father to uphold, I left on my quest that very same day. I will not allow this Necromancer to tear a family apart as mine had been. I will find this Necromancer and I will slay them.

This is only the beginning.