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1.4.04 - Siraen Valar

The elves the city forgot at the feast answered the next morning with fire carved into their own skin.

You woke hungover in a tavern that stank of the night before, Heimdall long gone, Varka already rifling sleeping pockets for unpaid tabs. The elves had not been welcome at the Midsommerblót, and that was the last straw. While the city slept off its mead, the Eastern Shallows broke open.

It started at the distribution centre, where the orks hand out rot to starving elves. A cloaked elf hobbled in muttering the same elvish over and over, then dropped his robe to show bloodied runes carved head to foot and glowing blue, spat one final word, and went up in a blast of blue fire that took the guards with him. By the time you were on your feet the whole district was in revolt, and it was organised. Explosions at the distribution centre. Overseers strung up and mutilated near the Tattered Loom. Elves swarming the Weeping Veins. If you did nothing, the Pact would answer with extermination.

You went to Veylith. Past the burning, past the Ember Chain forge where enslaved elven smiths still screamed, you found him, and you chose the elves' side. You agreed to carry their demands to the Pact and to try to hold back the enforcers when they came. You learned their words, and learned what the rune-martyrs are: the Siraen Valar, who carve commands into their own flesh and trigger them with a word and a touch. And you learned why the city cannot simply kill them all and be done. Hammerfall runs on the Weeping Veins and on elven magic, the food and the craft that keep it fed and standing. The Norse and the Orks can take a city. They cannot run one.

Remember For Next Time

  • The rebellion is on: the elves have risen, organised, with rune-martyrs, the Siraen Valar, willing to die in blue fire.
  • You stand with the elves: you agreed to carry their demands to the Pact and to shield them from the enforcers.
  • The demands: their own businesses in the ghettos, freedom to travel the Shallows, the right to carry and spend coin.
  • The city's leash: Hammerfall depends on elven labour in the Weeping Veins and elven magic for food and craft. That is the elves' only real leverage.

Where We Are

In the burning Eastern Shallows with Veylith, the elves' demands in hand and the Pact's enforcers on the way.