My dear friend,
Just because I am old doesn’t mean that I am all knowing or wise. I’ve found that age gives you a chance to learn wither one does or not is up to the individual. Still this time you asked me a question I do something about first hand but even I regard it as happening a very long time ago. My unit held the docks of an unimportant fishing villiage as Kontovar fell. I wasn’t sure then and after all these years still don’t know whose idea it was that we could make a diffenence that way but we stayed and even after the last ship had left and manned our hasty field fortifications even as the dark forces lashed against us.
To my surprise we continued to hold our positions for several days and the number of refugees hiding behind our lines swelled beyond our ability to fed and shelter them. Worse the last few brought word that the main Horde had finally noticed us and were sending a unit to crush us and feast on our souls.
It was then that the Mari appeared. Those wild savage horsewomen who for all their savageness and uncivilized ways brooked no dishonesty among themselves and had always stood among the armies of the light. There were about 300 of them warriors, men, and children and I knew that we had no room. With the Captain having died earlier that day, eaten by a giant flying insect demon, it fell to me to tell them that we had no place for them and that they should continue to flee. I was again surprised to be greeted by name warmly as if an old friend and was told that had come not seeking shelter but to offer all of a way out.
It was not long after that the Sages of what is now know as long lost Tuma opened a portal through which we all fled. I spent some time there learning magic, for that was when I discovered I had a talent for it, but I never did become a citizen.
Tuma was a bastion of the Light. It’s knights swore to the Old Code and it leaders swore to the principle that might does not make right but might shall defend right. Many were the enemies and foes that it had. I was not there at its end, if end it did, it’s most powerful enemies devised a plan which would have seen Tuma destroyed by a falling star. Chief among those enemies were Alumananx the Vile and his Vampire lieutenant Alonna Foresworn of Shadow Tor. Those two and others pledged themselves to dark forces and deeds to see to the destruction of Tuma and yet on the fated day Tuma, according to what I was able to discover, simply faded away.
I have heard the quietest of rumors that the people of Tuma shunted themselves away from the site of the disaster to come and yet await the coming of the magic, which they have hidden away in the outside world, to return.
