Undercover

"A new face?"

The man stared at Tom with interest, the back of his hand rubbing his chin. After observing him for a moment, he fixed a playful gaze on the Wand in Tom's hand. "You haven't been in 'Little Sun' long, have you?"

"Little Sun?"

"I call this city-state Little Sun. Sounds cheerful, doesn't it? Warm and bright. I imagine you came fleeing here because you heard it was safe?" The man tilted his head, luxuriating in the sight of the ruins spread everywhere beneath the Dragon's rampage, and said, "In the six years since 'Little Sun' became a place you could enter but never leave, your spells are the least shabby I've seen. Though compared to Lord Herpo the Foul, they're still nothing but a firefly before the bright moon."

"Oh? Is that so?" Tom nodded. "I'd like to see that for myself."

"Perhaps you possess something unusual, young man." Looking at the extraordinary Tom, the man's eyes were full of greed and aggression. In this era, Tom looked like a pampered young nobleman. He had noticed the Wand in Tom's hand—an object rare across the entire peninsula. Wizards who used Wands mostly came from northwestern Europe, and they commanded magic wholly different from that of the Wizards of Ancient Greece. He had already begun imagining what unknown spells Tom might have mastered, enough to let him go a step further, distinguish himself under Lord Herpo the Foul, and earn greater favor... The man quickly pulled himself out of his fantasies and, as he had every time he came here before, offered terms that could not be refused. "I believe you've already seen how they live here... peacefully and contentedly. Sunshine, freedom, sweet fruit. I know why people like you come here. It is nothing more than that