1.2.0 - A city overrun

A voice in a ruby asked for help, you broke her loose, and then you climbed out into a city where every living soul had simply vanished.

Down in the catacombs the voice would not let you rest. A woman's voice, soft and far away, asking if anyone could hear her, telling you she was trapped and needed help. It came from a portal of something like water, an elven device with a ruby the size of a fist throbbing at its peak. Some of you stepped through to where she was held: a girl who did not know her own mother or father, only that she had once been a farmer's daughter. Freeing her was simple and violent. You prised the ruby from its setting and it burst to red dust, and a shockwave of raw magic threw you off your feet and tore outward through the stone. A soft voice followed it, like an aftershock. Thank you.

A second mural of Odin waited on the way out, this one with both eyes where the first had only one. Count them true, the elvish read, something false but out of view. You pressed his right eye, it crumbled to a hidden ring, and the door swung open on an elven vault.

Then the long climb, and Upper Hammerfall at the top of it. Goblets half full on the tables. Meals laid out and left to rot. Quills resting in inkwells above letters that would never be finished, a harp leaning against a chair with no hand to play it. No footprints in the dust. Not a city emptied so much as a city where everyone had been plucked out of the world between one breath and the next.

Then ten years passed. Hammerfall became someone else's city, and the heroes of that day became four down-and-out strangers nursing thin stew at the Black Tide Tavern, under the not-quite-motherly eye of Varka, called Low Tide. Brawn, running from the law and wanting a clean start. Riven, still hunting the friends he lost. Gunnar, a bounty hunter back to see old Balder. Hanzt, returned wearing a very different face. And Balder behind the bar, drinking down the wages he needed for drink. Balder had a job going, passed down from the Rat King of Loki's Hand. Easy work. Take a rowboat out, meet a delivery, escort it safely into the city. Nothing to it.

Remember For Next Time

• The girl in the portal: you freed a trapped soul who knew nothing of where she came from. The ruby that held her is dust now. She said thank you.
• Empty Upper Hammerfall: the elves did not flee. They vanished mid-motion, all at once, and left a perfect, untouched city behind.
• Ten years on: you are scattered, broke, and reunited at the Black Tide Tavern under Varka. Balder has lined you up a smuggling job for Loki's Hand.

Where We Are

A loaned rowboat on the river north of Hammerfall, ten years older and short on coin, rowing out to meet smugglers for the Rat King.