"Oh, damn" he said to himself as he crawled out of bed. He had been travelling too long. "Where the hell am I?" he questioned himself. Was it Totum...no, Tater...no that wasn't it either, Toto perchance? Yeah, that was it, Toto. He walked out of his room, passed the innkeeper, and went straight outside. The sunlight pierced his eyes like a thousand daggers entering his brain. A bunch of kids ran amongst the town, so nieve and innocent, not a care in the world.

"Fools." Zamza spoke quietly to himself. In fact, this whole town seemed not to have a care in the world. It reminded him so much of his own home town. It too, wasn't worried about occurences outside it's old run-down town. As he watched the kids run amuck in the streets he couldn't help but remember his last days in his own village...

"Zamza, get up. Zamza, come on wake up. HEY ZAMZA!!!"

"Wha-" Zamza said as he fell out of bed crashing to the floor. "What the hell?" he questioned as he looked up to see who had dared to wake him out of his slumber. His eyes ran up from the floor and finally up the body of a young kid, and eventually to the face of Arty, his senior apprentice.

"Man, what do you want?" Zamza said calmly, trying not to let his anger show.

"Come on, you promised you would take us treasure hunting today, remember?" Arty questioned, a look of pure hopefullness on his face.

"Yeah, I remember. Alright." Zamza replied. "Now get the hell out of here so I can get changed.

"Yes!" Arty replied, his brow now containing the look of joy. "While you're getting dressed I will go get the others. We'll be back in a minute, so don't go back to sleep."

This infuriated Zamza. He jumped off the floor and ran over to Arty and looked down on him, his eyes showing nothing but anger. "Listen up, you don't tell me what to do wimp. I tell you what to do, got that? Secondly, you had better get the hell out of here and go get the others before I kick the crap out of you."

Arty burst into tears. "I'm s-s-sorry Zamza, I d-didn't m-m-mean it. Please forgive m-me, I-I'll never do it again.

This made Zamza sick. He picked Arty up and drug him outside. He kicked the child away from him and said, "Oh, damn, you make my stomach turn you little baby! Now go and get the others, tell them to be at my door by the time I get dressed, tell them master Zamza orders it. Oh yes, also, you are hereby demoted to last ranking apprentice in my ranks. Now, go." Zamza didn't bother looking back, he knew Arty was probably already at Royce's six houses up. He walked back into his room smiling. He loved having command. They were wimps to be sure, none of them able to match his incredible power, but it was still fun all the same. He was the strongest kid in the whole village, in fact he was 15, calling him a kid was an insult. Also, even though he couldn't tell anybody, he had been sneaking off to Antei on regular occasions to get sword lessons. In his mind he was already a great swordsman however. He finished getting dressed and went outside.

They had been hunting for over an hour and all they had found was half of a broken bird's egg, the broken handle or a sword, and 5 potch(which all went into Zamza's pocket by his orders).

"I want to go home" Arty quipped from his recently received last spot in line.

"Shut up twerp, nobody asked you" Zamza stated calmly from the front. He believed he had spotted something in the distance but couldn't be sure. "You guys stay here. That's an order." He started a slow trot towards the object, which had now begun to shine in the sunlight as he approached. When he finally reached the object, he knew at once what it was. He had seen them on the hands of people in Antei. It was a rune. He knew in his village you were not supposed to have these as they were considered "cursed" by the elders, but Zamza couldn't take his eyes off of it. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. On it there was a large dragon with giant flames firing out of his mouth. Zamza pocketed the rune and went back to his apprentices.

He instructed them to go home at once, Arty objected, but a vicious backhand put a stall to that tiny uprising. The apprentices about-faced, and ran back towards home. Zamza, however, ran in the opposite direction, towards Antei and the runemaster. As he ran he thought to himself "I wear gloves, noone will ever know, right?"

Zamza was awaken from his sleep by the screams and shrieks of the townfolks. He quickly dressed and ran outside to see what was the matter, but in his haste forgot to put on his gloves.

Zamza soon discovered what was causing all the problems, a pack of wolves, it looked like maybe six, was attacking the town. Several people were already dead, lying in large,dark pools of their own blood. Another person was currently having his arm served as the main course at a wolf's personal feast.

"No." Zamza said hurtfully as he noticed that Arty was one of the bodies on the ground. He was moving, and that was a good sign, but he looked severly wounded.

"Oh, God. I can't believe this is happening." Zamza said to noone in particular. "This must be some sort of dream. I have to do something."

Four wolves then spotted Zamza and began to approach. They started at a slow walk, quickly into a firm jog, and at last into an all out sprint. Zamza raised his arms and turned his head as if in defense when the rune on his right hand began to shine. The force blew him backward and his vision went to white. He hit the ground with a loud thump and he drifted into a steady unconsiousness.

When he came back to reality, the sky was alight with a bright pink atmosphere even though it was supposed to be the dark of night. Zamza's body ached all over, and his memory was hazy. He remembered wolves and - what the hell!

When he looked up he saw that the whole village was on fire. "Incredible!" he said to himself. It was then that he remembered the wolves. He looked around and saw nothing but the charred skeletal remains of the four who had attacked him. The other two were also toast, but it looks as if they were trying to get away when they were fried. As Zamza marvelled at what he had done, he didn't hear the townsfolk approach from behind him.

"Look what you have done, young Zamza." the elder said disdainfully. "You have brought one of those cursed runes into our village and look what it caused. You must leave now. We no longer wish to have you here with us. We will now have to move thanks to you. So leave and don't look back."

Zamza felt the anger swell inside of him. Didn't they know he was trying to protect the town. They were foolish for sending someone away with his talent and power. They would never survive without him. He did as the elder told him to do and left the village, never looking back. He didn't even bother to say goodbye to his parents.