Excerpt: A Time of Change (Tentative, albeit cliched, title)

And then there were the lost ones. Shadows passing in the night. Whispered voices that didn't match the face they came out of. Bumps in the crowd that went against the flow, but had no apparent source. The smell of pipeweed on the wind in an empty back alley. Some said they were the result of a curse placed on the land. Others that these were subjects of experiments the king had ordered. All that was known for sure is that they hadn't been around a few months before. But the very night the proclamation went out about the new restrictions on arcanes, these "lost ones" began to appear. Truth be told few believed there was a connection.
After all, everyone remembered the proclamation. Remembered being woken in the night and drug from their houses to listen to the proclamation. Rememberd the sun rising mere minutes after it was done. And the first sighting of a lost one in town was just after dawn the day before. A baker was laying out his goods first thing in the morning before any customers had arrived. He was walking the pastries to the counter when he tripped over something in the center of the hall. He was sure that a hobbit or somesuch had come in early, and walked to the back to see where he was. But when he looked up he didn't see anyone there. Righting himself and the tray he didn't see anyone nearby. Thinking it a thief he checked his gold, but found it was all there. As were the pastries and his keys. He went on his way and thought nothing about it till the proclamation was made. He had commented on the bitter chill to the nights air, and reached for his pipe and pipeweed, only to find them missing. It was then that he mentioned the mornings commotion, and the stories had only increased in number since then.
But such things were always close to his mind at times like this. One never knew what a contract with a noble would bring. It was almost certainly not what you'd bargained for, but then the only ones who could afford his services were the nobles, and it was far too late to lean a new trade now.