LIFE WITHOUT THE MAGIC
Chapter 1: The Discovery
Sunlight fell in a pool on the forest floor illuminating a heavily armed group of four. The town sentry hidden in the trees presumed this group to be bandits and took off through the trees to warn the guards. A mile west of this group, and only a stones throw from the town of Triveck a pretty young girl dressed in torn and bloodied peasant clothing ran into the village screaming that bandits had just attacked her. The town's people started screaming and shouting for the guards whom ran out, shouting at the girl to point them in a direction. She muttered an, "I think…" before pointing to the south and collapsing to the ground.
The guards and most of town's men ran into the woods, carrying pitchforks, axes, hoes, scythes, the odd ancient sword or spear and whatever else this poor town could muster with the intent of killing anything in their way. Back at the town the injured girl was carried into the town hall to be looked at by the town healer and, once revived, questioned about her encounter with the bandits. However, before she was carried away the girl dropped a small parcel that rolled until it hit the granary wall and was unnoticed by anyone.
Meanwhile the scout ran through the supposedly hidden system of wooden tree bridges towards the town. He had got no less than 100 feet from the bandits when he ran into a hidden trap and was pulled up into the sky by one leg.
As this was occurring the Bandits headed southwest toward the huge house of a wealthy Lord that sat on a hill overlooking the town. Lord Hamth was a very superstitious man, and so when he had run into an old woman the day before and had been told not only that if he did not leave Triveck soon he would die, but also every detail of his life previous to that Hamth had completely believed the woman. Before the dawn of this day Lord Hamth had already packed up his family, servants, and valuables and was heading towards his house in the city. He had left only a small contingent of guards whom had rushed to the town after the reports of bandits.
When the Bandits reached the manor they quickly ran through its hallways; empty of both people and valuables, to a small, ancient, and long unused dungeon. They appeared to know exactly what they were doing and worked efficiently and quietly as they together pushed one of the prison gates as hard as they could. Soon they heard the much sought after "click" as the gate slid into position. Turning around a tall slender woman strode purposefully towards the far end of the room and entered a small ring into a tiny slot that had previously been unnoticeable. After she slid the ring in a loud creaking sound was heard as the center of the floor was slowly pushed up revealing a stepladder going down into a black abyss.
Back at the village the wall of the local granary exploded. The town was already in chaos from the reports of bandits, and hearing the explosion set them in a state of frenzied excitement. As the people ran towards the site of the explosion the bandit victim moved off the cot she had just been put on and slipped out of sight. Within minutes she had managed to steal five horses without anyone noticing and was taking an out of site trail towards the manor.
In the woods the guards and townspeople had scoured over three miles of trees and seeing no signs of bandits themselves, and hearing no warnings from their several sentries in this area of the wood, they had turned back towards the village with the realization that they had been duped.
At the Manor the bandits stood looking hesitantly at the weak beams holding several thick pieces of stone above their heads. A tall, foreign boy spoke with a thick accent, "It will crush us." A short, stout, bald man replied by picking a spare piece of iron lying nearby and beating a wooden supports with it. After he had hit the beam several times and saw that if held strong he stated gruffly, "It'll hold" and began his descent down the ladder. The woman and boy followed the bald man leaving a huge, thick muscled man behind.
At the bottom sat, not piles of treasure, but a huge, dusty book. The woman quickly picked the book up, shouted at the bald man and the boy, "Scour this room for anything else!" and hurried up the ladder to the top. Down below the two bandits found only a single gold coin and a small scrap of paper with MORGRAH written on it. They returned to the surface. Once there the bald man ran over to where they had inserted the ring, urged everyone else to back away with the movement of his hand, and pull the ring out of the wall. At this the beams collapsed with a huge thud, sending up a cloud of smoke and forever closing off that chamber. The man placed the ring into his pocket and ran out of the basement, followed closely behind by his companions.
On the main floor of the manor the bandits moved toward the rear of the house and the small servant door that opened out onto the forest. They ran out of the manor just as the girl who had claimed to be a bandit victim showed up with the horses. Within seconds the Bandits were gone.
The townspeople scoured the woods for days after that, but found no sign of bandit activity. They concluded that the sole purpose of the 'bandit attack' was for the young woman claiming to be the victim to destroy the granary. Perhaps, they mused she was some rejected lover of the millers who wanted revenge. The sentry was never found.
Fifty miles out of Triveck in the City of Abhan the bandits sat in the dark back room of a witch doctors shop, pouring over the book with a decrepit old man that repeatedly muttered, "beautiful, beautiful,." to himself as he looked at the text.