1.2.2 - A friend in need

The Rat King made you family, and the family's first job was a missing elf in a district where elves are left to starve.

A week of idleness ended with a fist on the door and a summons to the back room. Varka was drinking before noon and looked worried about it. Beside her stood Kvarrac, the Rat King himself: aged, spry, a hairless tail curling in the candlelight, sharp teeth under the hood. He wanted oaths. No backward steps, no leaving the family. He embraced each of you and named you Wolves of Loki's Hand. Two others drifted in without a sound. Brelka, called The Riptide, all clipped words and itching to be elsewhere, who thought throwing green Wolves at a job this hot was exactly the kind of stupid Kvarrac specialised in, and said so before storming out. And Grettir, The Leech, a scarred man with bone saws on his belt and a promise: you will lose someone eventually, and that is what he is for, if you have the coin.

The job: Veylith Lorarion, Loki's Hand's one elven contact, the man who moves food to the starving in exchange for old elven secrets, had gone missing. An elite Ork detachment called the Uzzikh was tangled up in it. Get him back, quietly, and never lead anyone home.

So you walked into the Eastern Elf Shallows and saw what the Pact allows there. Elven children too weak to wrestle an Ork child for a mouldy loaf. A bell tolling, and a mother and father carrying a wrapped bundle the size of a small elf toward an ancient tomb the locals swear opens onto Hel. At the crumbling Temple of Heimdall the one-eyed priest Varthan Greycloak told you what little he had. The first to vanish was not Veylith but an Ork named Rashan, a guard unusually gentle with the elves, which made her a strange one to disappear when so many crueller Orks never did. You found the Uzzikh's warehouse down in the dark of the docks, lit from within, and went quiet.

Remember For Next Time

• You are Wolves now: sworn into Loki's Hand by Kvarrac, no leaving the family. Brelka (The Riptide) thinks you will get everyone killed; Grettir (The Leech) will stitch you back together for coin.
• The job: rescue Veylith Lorarion, the elf who trades food for elven secrets.
• Rashan: the missing Ork who set all this off, notable only for being kind to elves. The Ancient Elven Tomb is said to be a doorway to Hel, and back to the catacombs.

Where We Are

Outside the Uzzikh's warehouse in the Mongeet docks, ready to move on it quietly.