text: [Themes: fantasy, fantasy]
  
  Your group makes it back to the city in what must be only a little short of record time and say your farewells at the gates, most of them running off to see wives or families. You take stock of the area then get yourself through the now alien feeling streets to your old area of the city and are relived to find it almost completely unchanged. You go to an old way house you knew in the hopes that the same owner was still running the place.
  
  As you walk in the door a man behind a bar looks up and stares right at you for a full minute before saying "Well this is some triumphant return, look at the state of.."
  
  Your coin purse drops on the table
  
  "your huge full coin purse" he slowly finishes.
  
  You grin and tell him you'll take his best room for the night and some hot food followed by whatever his best bottle of alcohol is then head upstairs to wash the road off your face. Your Old friend meets you as you come back down and tosses you a key as he lays a large bowl of thick stew on the table alongside a large bottle of mead with two glasses.
  
  "two?" you point out.
  
  "Well its not everyday an old friend comes back into town after years away, so since your now paying for an entire bottle of finest mead reserve I thought I'd close for the evening and join you".
  
  You laugh and join him at the table sharing stories of the years since you grew up in the city together and went separate ways.
  
  Very late the next morning you wander down nursing your head and see your friend behind the bar equally worse for wear. You wander over and take the mug of water he hands you. Over breakfast and a lot more water you tell him your plans now that your back in the city. Your goal had always been to get enough to settle comfortably in or near the Iron district, then as the months went by, maybe get into one of the guilds as a skilled worker or arrange with a company to be a free-lance worker on their books. Your years of experience with all good references would stand you in good stead.
  
  > tell you friend that you'll just be staying a couple of days while finding your own place up in the Iron district, after all you have enough coin to rent an entire house for most of a year.
  You hang around long enough for your head to stop hurting and the food to settle then head off to see what changes the years have wrought on the rest of the city. Your Old district may not have changed at all but the wooden docks and buildings have stood longer than most peoples grandparents had been alive. You walk slowly up the sloping city until you reach the large walls that divide the districts and head through the large gates. The first thing you notice is that the gates which used to be old relics unmoved in decades had been cleaned up, reinforced and were guarded, they seemed friendly enough and were only guarding the gates closing mechanism not the gateway itself but it was still an odd sight.
  
  The Iron district had also changed, the stone buildings seemed even bigger than before and many of them were more ornate, even near the gate which would be considered the less well off area. You head further in and see signs for several new mining companies and new guard businesses recruiting. You quickly move off the main roads and find a respectable looking Inn to ask about rooms.
  
  You don't have any luck in the first few inns and taverns you try but after a while you find one with a small flat to rent- Its a little more than you wanted to pay but its only a few minutes from the guild buildings so you agree terms and say you'll move in that night. You head back to let your friend know then move your few worldly belongings into your new place.
  
  > Easy city living
  You settle into your new place almost immediately. At first you have no idea what your going to do with the large wardrobe and drawers set up in your room but then you just smile to yourself and head out to the nearest tailors and buy several sets of cloths. All practical and hard wearing, but still one of the first times you've owned more than 3 outfits in your life. After stowing it all away you start your rounds of the district and try to see as many of the changes as possible.
  
  You do your sight-seeing for the first couple of days then start to gather information on the Guilds and Companies that interest you. Having got the basics noted down, you buy in a nice supply of long lasting rations (just incase) and set about having an easy life for the whole of winter. Eating down in the taverns or the nice inns, and seeing what nightlife there was to offer.
  
  It was just as you were starting to really enjoy your complete lack of routine and responsibility and were planning on heading down to your friends for an evening drink when you start to hear loud voices and strange shouts from the taverns main room. You thought that this was a little to nice of a place for it, but never one to pass up spectating a good tavern brawl (and occasionally participating) you head down the stairs.
  
  But your stopped short when you reach the room and instead of a brawl you see a room full of panicked people all saying the word fire. You grab the nearest man and ask what is going on and he tells you the old districts up in flames, they think it started on the shore amongst the docks but the wind off the sea pushed it up into the old wooden buildings and they took like kindling, within minutes the whole district was one big inferno.
  
  You rush outside and round the inn, your window looked the other way shielding you from the sight but now you just stare blankly towards where the wall separating the districts and see a fierce orange and yellow glow over the wall, occasionally punctuated by large bursts of flame with plumes of black filling the air above it. You sprint down to the gates but once you get there you find them closed and barred shut. grabbing the nearest guard you shout for them to be open so you can get to your friend but he just stares blankly back at you obviously shocked dumb then walks away. The gate captain walks over and tells you that if anyone is still in there and didn't get out before the gates had to be shut, that there was no chance of them being alive. You start to tell him that he is wrong and needs to open the gates when he takes you over to them and tells you to put a hand on them.
  
  You reach out and feel the thick gates metal almost hot enough to burn you. The captain quietly tells you that the fire came at the worst possible time. it had been dry for weeks and wooden buildings had been build right from the shore to the base of the wall, all stocked full of the years produce, hay, wheat, pelts and oils. most of it flammable. The wind blowing in from the sea had fanned it into an inferno almost as soon as the first warehouses had gone up. It had spread unnaturally quickly and only the closing of the huge gates had stopped it spreading through into this district too. The gates would stay closes until the embers were cold, and that could take a couple of days at least without any rain to quench them.
  
  You head slowly back to your room and collapse into bed unsure what to do next.
  
  > Morning or choice
  You awake in the morning unsure what to do. Your plans had been of an easy year living off your money and you could still do it, prices would probably go up for a time but you'd still comfortably now that your settled. But you are now sure you'd lost any place that you had called home and your closest friend in the fire so you at least wanted to find out what had happened.
  
  You grab some food then head out to start trying to ask questions and see if anyone is the wiser about what had caused the fire, and to do a last look through the survivors for any sign of your friend.
  
  You ask several guards but most don't seem to know any more than you do. Eventually you see a guard that isn't as shell shocked as the rest and he tells you that the captain over at the military barracks has all the information about the fire and that you should speak to him. You head there to see what he knows.
  
  'The Barracks' as it is generally know does contain the city guard's barracks but also the military side of things, the army barracks, its armory, offices and everything else it needed all in one giant building that straddled and made up part of the wall between the iron and stone districts. You quickly see a small group of people talking to soldiers outside one of the entrances and approach them to hear what is going on.
  
  Its one of the captains explaining the fire to them, a few minor details extra but basically what you had heard before. Once he is done you ask him about how it started. He looks you over then sends you in and tells you to talk to the man at the desk, first room on the right. You enter and realize you not left with much choice as to where to turn since there is a group of soldiers blocking the corridor a few meters away with only one door standing open between you and them. You enter and approach the man looking at you from behind the desk.
  
  "What can I do for you?"
  
  "I want to know how the fire started."
  
  The man seems mildly amused by your abrupt response but any trace of amusement quickly vanishes as he replies.
  
  "A ship packed with flammable fuel was set alight and rammed into our docks. the fire was deliberate."
  
  Stunned by the sudden revelation you ask "Are your sure? wait are you just telling everyone this, wont it cause a panic?"
  
  "There's no point trying to keep it a secret, half the fishing fleet saw it happen as did many of the survivors that ran into the sea and were picked up the by the ships, the entire city will know in two days at the most. Also there were thousands of people in that district at the time, I wont dishonor them by lying about their deaths."
  
  "But who would do it, what is there to gain from burning down old district?"
  
  "We think it was Carn, at least the burning ship and the one that had been accompanying it bore their colours"
  
  You think for a few seconds but the name rings no bells "Who?"
  
  "Carn, the city a few weeks along the coast by boat, you been living under a rock or something? There has been minor trouble and trade disputes between us for nearly two years now."
  
  "I've been up North for years in the mines, news apart from bandit activity doesn't make it up there..."
  
  "Well long story short we started full maritime trading over 3 years ago, then two years ago some minor trade problems began, then it was about land, finally about fishing rights. things had been getting tense for months with armed ships keeping fishing boats company for protection and guards on our borders but no-one expected this. They have been sent ravens with questions about the ships but they will of course deny all knowledge, then it will be war. The king has already started recruiting to replace the men lost in the fire and more to fill out the army."
  
  You just stand unsure what to say, should you hate an enemy you don't know for what they did? Denounce their tactics, or just avoid the war and try and rebuild a life in the city.
  
  "So son" the commander stands up "we are still recruiting and the army wage is just as good as the miners one. You want to enlist?"
  
  > Hate what they did but you have money and a chance at a life now so it would be stupid to throw it away in a war, you politely refuse and head out.
  You spend the first few days split between organizing whatever is left of you life and watching the embers of the old district burn down to cold ash. Once the gates are opened you had planned to search through the wreckage for you old friends tavern but one look through the gate shows a nondescript layer of ash evenly coating the ground as far as the outer walls and the shore, only the occasional blackened wooden timbers or cracked black stone sticking up to break the massive expanse of grey and black.
  
  Soldiers and workers begin repairing the walls and gates from the fire damage and as the weeks pass people begin to clear out the ash and wreckage that survived. In many places the fires burned hot enough that not even much bone was left but in others teams were on duty collecting remains and transporting them into mass graves outside the city limits.
  
  The war had broken out after less than a fortnight. Carn repeatedly denied any involvement but after the trouble between the two cities and the witnesses to the ships bearing their royal colours war was inevitable. Reports said it was going our way and that we mostly had control of the seas between the cities and were making steady progress on land as well, casualties were growing but going by the weekly reports given by the guards theirs were much higher and we would have them under tight siege by the end of spring.
  
  You take it easy for the first few weeks but then begin helping out where you can. Your time in the mines has given you a simple grasp of solid construction so when work teams are put together building new stone docks in place of the wood ones you join them as skilled labor and since you don't need the money you let your wages go to re-homing the survivors. Your work and charity gets you some small attention from the survivors that make up a lot of the unskilled labor and when they learn you used to live in the old district your adopted into the 'family' again. You even meet a girl a little younger than you that lost her family in the fire. Your friends at first with you looking out for her, then you become closer, and by the time spring draws near you marry and settle into a life in the Iron town.
  
  By this time you've begun accepting your wage since most of the survivors are now in temporary homes. Your work on the docks and accepted position amongst the survivors has landed you a full time position in the construction guild overseeing some projects in the rebuilding of a new partly stone old district.
  
  The War went as quickly as you had been told to expect with Carn under tight siege by spring and fallen completely by summer. your army had been ruthless , firing burning oil and tar into the city and burning their food stores whenever possible, all in 'revenge' for the old district. Their king had denied all involvement right up until the surrender but he was now exiled along with his advisors and the city under your kings command.
  
  The world passed you by as you spent your years happily with your wonderful wife and family, there were always rumors of other wars and far off battles and victories but you didn't concern yourself with them as your city was now flourishing and always expanding and you had plenty of work as you moved up the guild ranks.
  
  *** Congratulations! This is the peaceful and happy ending. No big exciting adventure but you're happily married and well paid in a flourishing kingdom. And since all is going well its easy to ignore those little niggling doubts about what really happened that I know your harboring ***