That night, Remian stood alone in the cold and the dark. It was quiet, with the sounds of man and Wild muted and distant. The wind was chilly at the top of the Guild Hall, but he stood there without complaint, feeling the cold outside as much as he felt it inside. Humans. The word sounded oddly alien, as if considering a foreign kind. Strange thoughts were associated with the concept, for some reason. Destroyers. Liars. Betrayers. Asda. For a minute there, he itched to strike. Do something, anything, to cause her pain. Send the lynxmice to rob their food stores. Send the airships to bomb their homes. Something. But what would the result be? Vengeance in return for vengeance. Airships and armies from the Coalition of Six storming what little Remian had left in the Wildlands. For another minute he contemplated. Should he bemoan his lack of strength? Train himself to become an unstoppable mage, so that nobody would backstab him or bully h

Honestly speaking, the Black Ruins weren’t entirely black. A lot of them were. Many buildings were made of some strange smooth black material. Even after time and weather had taken their tolls on them, roughly half the town remained intact. Walking into the nearest little hut-like structure at the gate, Remian found the insides dry and almost dusty. In other words, the roof didn’t even leak. There was a good bit of broken furniture, though. Twisted metal and old wood chips hinted at a desk by the large window. Was this some sort of guard house or inspection booth? Meanwhile, the floor, rather than black, held broken white tiles. The roads outside were gray stone. The trees and bushes around were a mix of greens and reds. There were flowers and creepers growing wildly everywhere. Some small critters even made their homes in the ruins, and they too added color to the scene. Mindy touched the black wall, sniffed, and said, “You know, now that I t