Things had grown increasingly strange for Zeraer over the past week.  He kept noticing little irregularities everywhere.  Being a cautious and reclusive man, noticing things like this was his specialty.<br/><br/>On one occasion, he had found his front door slightly ajar when he awoke in the morning.  Aside from this, nothing had been touched -- he knew every place for every object in his cottage, and everything but the door was exactly how he had left it.  But his door was no ordinary door, and he was no ordinary man -- the lock on the door was a heavy iron sliding bolt, and his memory of exactly how he had locked it, and when, and with what book in his hands was as vivid as his waking senses.  It was also lightly magicked to give much greater resistance to opening when touched by anything or anyone other than himself.  This by itself would not have gone unnoticed by Zeraer -- it would have been puzzling and something to chew on -- however, it also would not have concerned him all that much.  The mind can play funny tricks when one is buried in study, and even if magical creatures had somehow taken to playing tricks on him, it was of no consequence so long as they didn't disturb his books or his work, or interfere with his plants.  His plants were his only passionately pursued hobby outside of his magic.  The entire cottage was lined with vases and bowls and creeping vines and sweet smelling flowering bushes.  The only things that outnumbered the plants were the books.  Books everywhere, on tables, on the floor, on shelves.  This was Zeraer's home.<br/><br/>There were other oddities, though.  One morning a very particular plant died for no reason.  It took Zeraer a long time to realize that the plant that had died was the very last gift given to him by the only girl he had ever loved, long, long ago.  The plant itself had been quite remarkable.  It was the most robust and tough of vines, and Zeraer had traveled for long distances and for many days without any need to worry for its health, let alone its survival.  As it was the middle of a gentle Fall, there was no reason Zeraer could conceive of that could explain the death of the plant.<br/><br/>One of his silver necklaces melted right off his neck one day.  The necklace never even got hot, it just turned to liquid and dripped off his neck and evaporated.  The only distinctive feature of the necklace was that it was the only object Zeraer owned that he knew to be pure silver.<br/><br/>He had been having very strange dreams.  Though the dreams were not always the same, they did always have a common theme.  He would be walking somewhere from his childhood and a glowing being, an elemental spirit of light, would join him.  They would talk, but at the end, the spirit always said, "you have come to the end of one journey, and must soon begin another, and the new journey will put you back on the path of the old."  "What do you mean?" he always replied, and there, the dream ended.<br/><br/>It was for this reason that Sunscry's behavior today was something he noticed immediately.  His hawk, a large black-winged bird with a very loud and insistent voice, had been circling the cottage and nipping, hard, at Zeraer's elbows all morning.  He had tried to ignore the frenetic pecking and squawking, but it was getting difficult, and painful!, to do so.  He put down his book and stood from his outdoor chair in the shade.  "Come, Sunscry," he called, putting an arm out for the bird.  She landed on his arm and squawked -- she was still obviously agitated.  She nipped at his hand and flew off again.  Zeraer now noticed that the hawk kept flying in a specific direction and returning to him.  He never would have thought that the bird really meant for him to follow except that she forced the issue.<br/><br/>At just before mid-day, she got tired of trying to make Zeraer understand, and instead snatched up his wand in her beak and flew into a high tree in the forest near his cottage.  His calls for her to "come back immediately" were ignored.  He walked over to the tree she was in, and she flew off -- still in the same direction, towards the largest nearby town in the area.  Zeraer was a student of nature, of the elements and of animals.  Though he did not understand what was driving the bird's behavior, he did understand what the bird wanted.<br/><br/>And that is how Zeraer came to have his bags packed for travel for his first venture deep into the forest in a long time.  And also, how he came to find himself walking for the better part of a day, to finally find himself outside of a tavern whose sole chimney breathed out warm, inviting-smelling smoke.  Sunset painted vivid pinks and purples across the sky, and anyone who could have seen the tall, black-cloaked man with his large leather traveling bag, framed against the cobblestone street, the loud but inviting tavern and that sky would have likely thought to herself, "This is a fine way to start an adventure."