Fern entered the war tent and found Trinity in the middle of a tense meeting with several unexpected guests: a well-dressed elf in fine clothing, flanked by two elves in pure red cloaks. At their hips hung double-bladed scimitars, the unmistakable mark of the Taimavar , elven mercenaries from the People’s Democratic Republic of Eldamar, known as the invisible hand of the Emperor of Rosenhall. They were the agents sent when the Emperor wanted a problem to disappear while preserving deniability.
The elven noble informed Trinity that the Empire was shutting down his Tesla Coil project. After word reached the Emperor of the uprising in Azmar and the revelation that ACE had been demonic in nature, the Lords’ Alliance could no longer afford to be associated with anything that might be tied to demons, rogue artifice, or municipal magical experimentation. Funding for municipal artifice was being cut, and the Taimavar had been dispatched in its place to take over the fight against Asherdalon.
The leader of the delegation noticed Fern and immediately bowed deeply in respect to the Eladrin in the room. He introduced himself as Lord Saedor of the most old and noble House of Argynwen’del, ambassador of Eldamar. Leaving his seat at Trinity’s small war table, Saedor offered it to Fern out of respect for his “elder,” despite Fern being much younger than him.
Saedor criticized Trinity for failing to inform him that an elven noble was part of Dunedrift’s high command, then asked Fern for his opinion on the state of the town.
Fern argued that the Tesla Coil should be allowed to continue, asking whether it was not the nature of Eldamar to use an enemy’s strength against them.
Saedor considered this and replied that he had forgotten how pragmatic the Vaelwood could be.
“Yes. An eye for an eye. I find that to be appropriate in this scenario.”
With that, Saedor permitted Trinity to continue work on the Tesla Coil. He told Fern that he looked forward to working with him in “bettering” Dunedrift, saying that the Vaelwood and Eldamar stood united to build a new world their Father would be proud of.
Once Saedor and the Taimavar left, Trinity was openly relieved. He told Fern that he hated the Taimavar, or the “Blood Elves,” as he called them. According to Trinity, they were behind the slaughter at the Prophet’s Guildhall and had killed many of his friends.
Fern asked Trinity what had happened between him and the Prophet.
Trinity explained that years ago, he had been dispatched alongside a Lords’ Alliance caravan to an orc camp near the Hallowed Falls, after the orcs attacked the nearby settlement of Northpass. The mission had originally been to arrest the chieftain and his sympathizers, then install a Lords’ Alliance commander to occupy the camp and stabilize the territory. Trinity, the Prophet, and Vulmer had been sent to support the Lords’ Alliance and discourage any public uprising by the orcs.
According to Trinity, something snapped in the Prophet.
Unable to resist “supporting the little guy,” the Prophet attacked the Lords’ Alliance caravan, blew it apart, and began slaughtering guards without warning. The orcs joined the violence, and the mission collapsed into a massacre.
Trinity was tackled by guards and stabbed so many times that he now has to wear a helmet constantly, explaining that most of his jaw is missing beneath it. When Vulmer was knocked prone, the Prophet chose to grab Vulmer and teleport away, leaving Trinity behind. Trinity was taken prisoner.
To Trinity, the Prophet now sending adventurers to recruit “his good friend Trinity” into the resistance, effectively replacing Vulmer’s role on the team, was an insult beyond measure.
Fern pushed back, arguing that the orcs must have had a reason to attack Northpass, poor conditions, mistreatment, or some larger injustice, and that the Prophet must have been right to oppose the Lords’ Alliance.
Trinity rejected this outright. He told Fern that reasons do not justify killing innocents and burning homes. A civilized society cannot function if every aggrieved group declares violence justified by grievance. Trinity admitted that the Lords’ Alliance stabbed him and took half his face, but he still understood the need for rule of law.
He argued that a firm hand was necessary in a world where people like himself, Fern, and the Prophet could level a city block on a bad day.
To Trinity, the firm hand was not simply about oppressing the weak. It existed to resist people with enough power to topple governments before breakfast.
Trinity then turned Fern’s logic back on him. He said Fern must be deeply biased if he instinctively assumed the orcs must have had a valid reason for violence while coming from the Vaelwood, a forest whose elves were infamous for killing anyone who entered their territory. Even an innocent berry gatherer might be cut down by arrows from the treetops.
Fern called that self-defense.
Trinity countered that the Vaelwood were no better than the Blood Elves. In his eyes, at least the Blood Elves did not pretend to be victims.
He argued that if a monster were killing innocents, the Prophet and his allies would mobilize immediately to destroy it. But when orcs or Wild Elves killed Lords’ Alliance citizens, suddenly the violence became civil unrest, self-defense, or resistance.
Trinity then revealed his own exile from the Vaelwood. He had once been sent on a mission similar to Fern’s and returned with knowledge of artifice. The Vaelwood rejected his discoveries, fearing that the sound of guns and machinery would expose their secret treetop village to the Lords’ Alliance. Furious at their isolation and refusal to change, Trinity sold the location of the village to the Lords’ Alliance. He hoped occupation would end their separation from the outside world, stop their senseless killing, and allow their people to interact with civilization and advance.
Instead, it caused the bloodiest battle in Rosenhall’s history.
The Lords’ Alliance was crushed. Trinity was exiled by both the Vaelwood and the Lords’ Alliance. Since then, he had been stationed in Dunedrift, “the middle of nowhere in the center of a desert.”
Fern continued to argue that the Lords’ Alliance was tyrannical and that Trinity’s actions against the Vaelwood were unjustified. Trinity sighed and told him that word had spread across the Sapest of a group of adventurers killing a Lords’ Alliance division while they were clearing out a goblin camp. While the Lords’ Alliance lacked the evidence to pursue them, Trinity suspected Fern and the others were responsible.
He warned Fern that Lords’ Alliance-aligned Sapest territories were terrified the party might visit them next and “overthrow them.”
Trinity ended the argument by saying they needed to focus on the dragon. Once Asherdalon was dealt with, they could speak more.
Fern agreed, but pressed Trinity to meet with the Prophet eventually and settle their “bad blood.” Trinity was deeply offended by the phrasing, but with the Wand of Lightning Bolts now recovered and the Tesla Coil project moving forward, he felt obligated to agree.
Trinity informed Fern of several other local problems where the party could help, then went to install the wand as a secondary power boost for the Coil.
The party took a long rest.
During the rest, Behzad and Fern spoke about the Vaelwood. Behzad explained that, when he lived in Moressely, the Vaelwood elves were regarded as boogeymen of the forest. No one who valued their life would enter the woods. Even in times of starvation, when fresh berries or deer could save the city, only the most desperate entered the Vaelwood, and they never returned.
This revelation shook Fern, forcing him to question what he knew about his people and the mission he had been sent on by the Vaelwood’s Undying Council: to document the outside world for them.
Around 9 PM, the party went to the refugee camp. They learned that a nearby shanty town had been the first settlement struck by Asherdalon. Survivors pulled from the rubble had been brought to the camp while awaiting transport to Bradford.
The party offered to travel to the shanty town and look for any remaining survivors. A guardsman agreed, noting that the timing was fortunate. The Taimavar planned to extract all elves from the camp in the morning and take them “to a better place.”
This deeply concerned Fern.
The party traveled to the ruined settlement and found smoke and fire rising into the night. Screams echoed through the streets, drowned out by the laughter of gnolls. Survivors were being slaughtered by a gnoll pack under cover of darkness.
The party rushed into a local church, where they were ambushed by a Gnoll Pack Lord and his minions. The fight was brutal. The party was beaten and bloodied before finally dispatching the gnolls and saving three survivors: a priest, a guardsman, and a little girl named Melanie.
Melanie begged them to save her brother, Bruldan, who was holding the bridge against a pack of gnolls alone, trying to buy time for people to escape.