The local tavern. The only place around where people could go once the sun set. Between the farms and mines, the only revelry the people of Netherhill had was in the shared spirits of drink and food. It was miserable in here, with a dry, rank odor and lights so dim one might think they were candles instead of mana lamps. But, being the only option, people found it in them to come around anyway. Dwarves, most of them, but a few sun elves, a few humans. One old felid lady working the bar.

When Amelia entered the tavern, everyone paused. Stopped what they were doing. Looked straight at her.

She lifted the body resting on her back and dumped it on the wooden floor. It creaked. Gasps and swears.

“You aren’t safe in Netherhill,” she said. “The North Sunwell Company is coming.”

“Who the hell are you?” A dwarven man asked.

“I just got here this week. Now Gyorien’s dead, and it’s my fault.” She wanted to take him here, to show them what had happened, but his body was charred beyond recognition. Impossible to recover.

The people in the tavern began to panic. The bartender sat down in a chair in shock.

“A mage enforcer tracked me here and ambushed me,” Amelia told them. “I killed him, but they’ll send more. They might send a whole platoon. You ought to make yourselves scarce. Leave town if you can.”

“Where will we go?” A human asks, gripping her skirt in fear. “We have the harvest festival next week!”

“I’ve ruined your lives. I’m sorry.”

“Where will YOU go?” the bartender asked. “Are you going to pay for what you’ve brought? Or are you going to run?”

Not run. She was done running. Done for the rest of her life.

“I’m going away.” She set her purse, overflowing with coin she nabbed from the golemancer, down on an empty table. It should have been a few months’ pay for a family. A couple of weeks for the whole town. “For your troubles. I’m sorry.”

She left Netherhill, just days after her quiet arrival. Nothing she could do here would help bring these people more peace.

Her sights were set, then, on saving the whole continent. The only way to bring a better life to Netherhill and all the places like it was to destroy the colonial corporation that exploited them.

The North Sunwell Company.