I arrive in town exhausted. The need to stash my belongings points to a decrepit white Victorian with the air of a boarding house. No one’s around when I enter but this does not concern me. I shove my bags under the bed in an otherwise empty room and return to the street. No one’s outside, either. The town feels like it’s holding its breath. I cross the street to a disused petrol station. As I’m standing in the parking lot a car engine revs from behind the garage. Tires squealing, an old Trans Am speeds out and across the street, up the short incline to the house, and rams through the doorway, disappearing inside. I find this alarming and walk away at a rapid pace.

Now I’m hiding in the woods up the hill and down the street from the house. It’s a pleasant spot, almost like a tended garden but wild enough to offer adequate cover. I keep watch from atop a large boulder. Just as my pulse slows to resting rate a pair of wizard-thieves appears in the street below. They look up in my direction before entering the house. Despite the Trans Am now presumably wedged in the vestibule, only a few minutes pass before they walk out carrying my bags.

I know they are coming for me next, so I don’t bother with further retreat. It will only aggravate them to a higher level of violent intent. When they arrive at my boulder I am calm. They seize me and take me to their camp deep in the woods beyond the town limits.

Over the next few days I attempt to impress them with my rudimentary skills. I levitate small objects and hurl them across the campsite, much to the irritation of its inhabitants. In a moment of insolence I attempt to use my power to asphyxiate the field lieutenant as he delivers a formal complaint about my presence to the lead wizard-thief. A scornful bark escapes the lieutenant’s lips as my weak effort fails. Humiliated I shrink away to my tent. But I know those who matter are secretly impressed. Soon I will be ready. Soon I too will matter.