The day would have been perfectly normal if not for the strange hawk that perched upon the Eastern Gate that morning, its eyes watching the comings and goings of the townsfolk with unnatural interest. It was quite a boring task for the hawk, the light banter of the townsfolk became a dull drone in its sensitive ears. At last, a figure crested the distant hill. The hawk clicked its beak, its keen gaze followed as the figure formed into young Tobias, the stable boy and local animal tender, who rode his lumpy brown nag through the gate and toward the only inn for miles, unaware that when the sun set his life would never be the same.

The hawk clicked its beak again and took off to the Western Gate, waiting for the next player to come.
The smell and clamor of Oakedge was nothing new to Tobias- it was Market Day, after all. Sandwiched between the omniscient Nahekar Forest and the unforgiving sands of The Shifting Wastes, this was the only day of the month that the small town got any visitors aside from wayward traveling trains and military patrols.

Tobias passed the merchants, travelers, and townsfolk alike as he rode over the dust and cracked cobblestones that acted as the main road. The ramshackle dwellings loomed over him in a suffocating and degrading manner- the only buildings worth keeping up repairs on were designated for the military, where the official business happened, and the inn, where the locals gathered at the end of a long day’s work.