Authors Note: This fanfiction will be updated less frequently than my other fanfiction Thunder (if you haven't read it already check it out), so do not expect new installments of this daily.

Chapter 1
I watched the Chroma carefully. One wrong move, and it would scamper into the bushes robbing me of today's meal. I picked up my Flourish and took aim. When the Chroma stopped to eat some fruit off a bush I made my move, throwing the flourish like a javelin, spearing it through the throat leaving it hanging on a tree. A clean kill. I looked over my shoulder, to check for any Restrainers. There weren't any, but you can't be too careful. Especially not when you're me. I walked to the camp, watching Tawny tend the fire. I lobbed the bag over to him, where it stopped in mid-air, before floating down. Tawny is an Owlite. The last of his kind. Trained in the arts of enchantment and sorcery before he could even speak. I expect he's done this before. Many times.

He's part of the reason that I'm down here. I don't blame him though; it wasn't his fault. It helps that if it weren't for him I'd be dead. It started in Haven, where I was wondering around Haven, selling equipment like the arms dealer I was, competing with the Strangers and Auction House for prices, when I heard it. The scream. It was a scream of no creature I knew. It was the sound of a bird in pain. Everyone in the town square stopped for a moment, but quickly returned to their usual behaviour. Typical. I too almost went back to haggling with customers for brandishes but then saw someone out of the corner of my eye, running from the Restrainers. The Restrainers were founded a few years ago, when supposedly a colony of knights escaped. At the time I was unsure why anyone would want to escape Haven but now I know: it's because you have no choice. The Restrainers rule with an iron fist, severely punishing any wrongdoers. Before them, you could get a small fine for stealing. Now, you can get whipped for less. The runner was dressed in Grey Feather gear, traditional for Owlite scholars. I also noticed that he had the Grey Owlite shield slung over his shoulder, also typical for Owlites. I helped hide him in my shop when the Restrainers weren't looking. The night after that was the worst of my life. Somehow they had found out that he had been hiding there. They burned it down, hoping to smoke us out. We managed to escape hrough the back door. The next morning, we went to the Arcade. As expected, the Restrainers were expecting us to go there. I tied a firework to a snipe and let it loose there to cause a distraction. The Restrainers were too busy trying to chase the poor bird to stop me and Tawny. We grabbed a supply pack and hopped onto the elevator, and before the Restrainers knew it, we had gone to Emberlight.

Emberlight was technically neutral territory, and at least less policed than Haven. We both knew it could only be temporary, so we knew not to get too attached to the townsfolk. Gracken hid us underneath the floorboards in his house. As we sat there, waiting for the Restrainers to give up searching, Tawny told me about his past. Magic is illegal in Haven. Naturally the Spiral Order would be scared of anything stronger than them, the cowards that they are. Tawny had been raised in the Owlite Academy of Sorcery centuries ago. After swiftly advancing to the rank of Warmage he left the Academy to learn more about the outside world. That was, before he made the mistake of visiting Haven. In the beginning, things were fine. Tawny helped the crops grow and brought prosperity to the land. This went on for a few hundred years before the knights came. The knights upon making their base in Haven turned the Strangers from peaceful agricultural people into fiercely competitive merchants. Then people started having bad luck. It was obviously the fault of the knights most of the time, such as a snipe pecking out a knight's eyes. What the investigators of the case weren't told is that the knight frequently enjoyed stepping on snipes and stealing eggs from their nests, He had it coming, but the Restrainers didn't think that. They accused magic of being the source of the behaviour and promptly banned it. Tawny tried to lay low for a couple of years after that until his favourite Stranger became sick. Tawny was quick to use his healing magic to bring the Stranger back from the brink of death and save him. The Strangers didn't mind. They remembered the times when Tawny used his nature magic to help bring in a good harvest every year. However the Restrainers didn't see it that way. They arrested him and were about to execute him when he wriggled out of their grasp. And that was the point when I saw him.

I could hear the door being knocked on, Gracken opening the door and greeting whoever came in. I pressed my ear to the floorboards trying to get some idea of who was there. I began to hear raised voices. “I'm telling you there's no one here!”, this was Gracken. “Silence,” said a gruff voice, “You will not speak like that to your superiors”. Gracken replied, flustered, “Superiors?! Emberlight is neutral territory!”. There was silence for a few dreadful moments, and then a shot rang out. A body hit the floor with a loud thud. Gracken was dead. The Restrainers had claimed another victim.

The person above searched the rooms for a few minutes but found nothing. He sniffed and kicked the front door open. For a few minutes, Tawny and I waited under the floorboards, but no one came back. We sneaked into the elevator and headed down. The first depth looked uninhabitable. A deconstruction zone crawling with devilites. Just because the knights were my enemy didn't mean that the gremlins were my allies. Far from it. Next floor was a wolver den. We both agreed that it would be a good place to make our base, at least for a while. I grabbed the supply pack I had been saving for an occasion like this and pulled out a tent. Tawny began to start a fire using his powers, leaving me to hunt for some food.

Now, five hours later with only a Chroma for food, we settled down to enjoy our meal. Unexpectedly, the meat was surprisingly sweet. It tasted quite gamey but you can't be picky when you're on the run from an army of trained soldiers. When asked one what to do now, Tawny was quick to provide an answer, “We could go to the Owlite Academy. I'm sure they'll help us hide for a long time”. Not wanting to tell him that the place he had grown up in had been destroyed by ghostly felines years ago, I went along with it. We packed up our tents and headed to the elevator.