They called themselves the wood walkers, a group of…liberators. The wandered the forest in their motley band of 20 and looked for opportunities to liberate people. What did they liberate people from you might ask? Well their worldly positions of course, sometimes coin and on occasion their lives.

Bandits was a commonly used label, but Blackhand didn’t like the term bandit. His crew had more class and ability than that brand deserved. He had hand picked the crew for their skills and reasonable morals. He had nothing against killing but would try to avoid it when possible. He was here to make money not rape and massacre peasants. His band's relative low level of crime had led to many years of prosperity as they frequently moved from region to region.

He had cultivated his reputation; he was harsh but fair, his widely known nickname was evidence of this Blackhand. It was a pretty cool name if one ignored where it came from. Not many knew how it had come about however and Blackhand would like to keep it that way.

It was on the first ever mission he had run with his freshly recruited men, friends they had been at that stage, a much more personal relationship than he held with most of his crew now. They had robbed a wagon, and when Blackhand had gone to look through the stolen goods his hand had come to dip into what he thought to be a rum barrel to sample the contents. It had been some black and sticky reagent that left his whole hand up to the wrist back as midnight.

It took over a month to clean fully from his hand and the nickname his friends gave to him had stuck to this day.

“Oi Oi Oi, lookey looo what we have here, are you off to sell granny’s flour. Come on sexy show me what you got….” He shouted in a loud and mocking voice to make sure the driver, a pretty woman. She knew what was happening as his boys encircled the waggon from the surrounding bushes and trees.

Despite his mocking and suggestive tone, it was all bluster. He knew that he had to play it smart. The waggon looked pretty good, you never knew if some random wagon had a mage escort. He and his boys could overpower a 3rd Tier mage relatively easily but higher than that and they would fail. It was best to leave in a retreat option saying they were just asking the weather or something like that, more often than not that was enough to avoid a fight.

The woman spoke with a visible sneer, both in her tone and on her face. “Piss of you delinquents, you do not have the qualifications to step on the masters road.”

For Backhand that set of some very loud alarm bells. Rarely did unimportant people behave with such convincing bluster. Farm girls or weak peasants would pause for a while, letting the situation sink in, then they would panic. The woman’s instant reaction and lack of concern told him that she was not afraid in the slightest.

“No no no, we couldn’t have such a bountiful opportunity to walk away now could we.” It was a refined voice that spoke from the wagon.

Blackhand looked over to the back of the wagon and saw a small child, barely 5 foot standing in the back of the wagon, curtain pulled aside. The man stationed there stood still, surprised at such a calm boy. Usually they were in tears.

Blackhand was not dumb, in fact his intelligence was quite profound if lacking in a classical education. Waring signals and alarm bells were flashing in his head, he was glad he had trained his men not to attack until a specific signal was required. He would have to handle this delicately.

Blackhand glanced behind the boy and saw the glint of metal, racks of trays glinted with silver and chests sat stacked in the wagon. Fuck, time to play my trump card.

Blackhand raised his hand…… and folded it neatly to his stomach performing a stately bow in the boys direction.

“Greetings My Lord, we humble band of mercenaries happened upon your wagon and were wondering if perchance you were looking for an escort, my Lord?” he said with a hither too unmatched respect and deference. Blackhand had activated his trump card, suck up.

His men were quick to catch on, this was one of the backup plans he had come up with. The hand picked group all understood and supported his leadership plan.

They all saluted with their weapons and hurried to the side of the wagon forming into 3 neat rows of six with his second at their front to lead them. Now they looked like semi-professional soldiers.

He saw a look of interest and a faint line of happiness make its way onto the boy's face after a brief flash of disappointment quickly concealed.

“Well captain…” The boy trailed off.

“Blackhand my lord, but if it pleases you my true name is Primar Sebastian Al – Kelpheim. Pleased to be at your service.” He spoke in an ordered and quick manner as to not waste time.

“Well I do find myself in need of an escort and itinerary, consider yourselves on probation. If you do well until we reach the city I will consider hiring you permanently.” This was a good outcome. Blackhand's mind started turning. If the boy was serious this could be a great opportunity, the wording of his last sentence did not go over his head, probation. He knew their original purpose for being here.

His second instructed the group to move into formation around the wagon, it did not slip Blackhand's attention that the woman on the driver's seat slipped a nasty looking dagger back onto her leg.

‘A close shave indeed.’

***

900 Years Ago…

900 Years was an eternity for mortal men. Mages could live very long lives, but still the longest lived mage ever was ‘Mage King Eternus Dan- Hellbreaker King of Renia’. He lived to be 206 years old and developed the only publicly acknowledged 11th Tier spell. He was the first ever to exceed the rank of Arch Mage and be called a mage king. Even to such a man 900 years was time unreachable.

Yet this time long ago was the birth of an entity not akin to the mortals he would be compared too.

In a universe parallel to many others a beginning began. It started with creation of existence itself from knowing one knows what. Then came the big bang, relatively speaking. A huge explosion of energy that went from being just potential energy to matter, heat and something was created.

It was important to understand that this universe was tiny, at least when compared to many others. If compared to the average sized universe then it was barely the size of a room. Mere meters across, condensing enough matter to make a single chair floating in the centre. This matter was in the form of a clump of…things. The laws of physics did not exist here, therefor trying to put a definition on it would be stupid, but it scintillated.

It could be described with only one word, aware.