Life beyond the wall isn't so bad, but it is rarely easy. The troublesome priests and knights of Talingarde rarely extend up here, but neither does the safety of their communities, the plenty of food and warmth they offer, or the protection from the roaming beasts. In the absence of the good kingdom, the people band together in tribal communities, and grow to resent the southerners for safety they enjoy, and the patrol that strike into their land, for the most part these aim to keep the bugbears in check, but they show little empathy for communities of men beyond the light of Mitra.<br/><br/>Despite the benefits of the tribe, there are those who choose to walk alone. This is a dangerous life, and one must have a useful set of skills to survive. For you, it is your ability to prey on others, to capture and train them as slaves. You sell them to the tribes, to the bugbears, and to mysterious strangers who arrive by ship, their faces concealed, their words crisp with the enunciation of civilization. Sometimes your customers resent you, particularly the bugbears. They ask why they should pay your price, when they could just take them by force, they’d even have an extra slave. Fortunately you can convince them, that suffering the indignity of parting with coin is worth the steady supply of slaves you all but guarantee, one they will lose if they turn against you. Well, that and the power of the unknown. They know you are a mage, they know not how strong...<br/><br/>Some beasts however cannot be negotiated with, nor are they as easily intimidated. And today, you are being hunted. You had three slaves, a couple who lived in the woods on the plateau, along with a huntress from the tribe of the Tumbling Stream, taken too far away for her kin to know you were responsible. Now you have two, the woman of the couple slain when your campsite was attacked the other night by a lumbering beast that seemed more a creature of water than land, sporting a fin upon its back and wielding a heavy spear. It slew the woman in one strike, and seemed barely inconvenienced by the bolt you planted in its side. It was only under the cover of magic you escaped, and now it hunts the three of you, waiting for night to fall.