In the country of Teltor-Dorndul, in the Elven city of Telthoril, the marketplace began to come alive. Though shadows still filled many of the lower streets, the taller levels were above the walls, lifted up to bask in the rising sun over the Southern sea. The marketplace was a wide portion of city on the South side, three levels connected by ramped streets and blessed with a view of the sea that its merchants enjoyed taking in, in the meager time before they had customers but after their stores were set up.

Each level of the marketplace took up a section of street, the largest and lowest was ninety feet across, the smallest and highest was only seventy. With market stalls set to either side and ramps at the far ends leading higher and lower, the marketplace fit snugly into a tightly packed city.

One had to be lucky to snag a stall in the inner marketplace, many more merchants took up stalls in the wider city outside Telthoril’s mighty walls, yet one woman was keenly equipped to bargain, barter and persuade her way to such a lucrative position.

She was a fey witch, a student of the arcane from planes beyond, and it showed in every aspect of her. Her burnt orange skin with a texture like wood, her long dress made of fine fabric, but which further and further became leaves in the shades of autumn as you traced it lower, until at last it was indistinguishable from a canopy below her waist. Her golden eyes with slitted red pupils that scanned every detail of the bottles and ingredients she laid out on the shelves of her stall. Her ears, pointed and almost as long as her head. Her hair, a gorgeous vermillion, cascading by her shoulders, the occasional leaf distinguishable in her locks, overtop of which she donned a wide, floppy-brimmed, pointed hat that matched her dress.

Her stall, even amongst the Elven Architecture, with its carefully controlled use of nature, was a beacon of the natural that the Elves of Telthoril had sought to control in its founding so many centuries ago. At the back was a wooden cart, and where they grew rigid white trees, carefully managing their canopies, she grew a winding, twisted trunk topped with the gorgeous shades of autumn she was so infused with, its roots twisting impossibly through the wood of her cart. From the tree’s canopy she attached two long sheets of purple and black fabric to the ground on either side, creating a welcoming open front. Where they buried roots and hemmed in the grass with paving stones, she encouraged the desperate little sprouts to fight their way up between the cracks, pushed the mushrooms to grow upon the bark of her tree.

Front and center in her stall was a big, black, bubbling cauldron, full of some concoction the Witch had started long before the sun began to cast its first beams of lights into the marketplace. Behind the cauldron she kept a plush, garnet red cushion on the carriage step and to either side she had a pair of standing shelves. As the first customers began to arrive in the market, keen to beat the rush, she tipped a small bowl of powdered chalk and chips of charcoal into the bubbling, smoking cauldron.

In a delightful burst of emerald smoke, the concoction was consumed, and onto the edge of the pot hopped a fat little bright green frog.

“Ribbit,” it announced itself curiously, peering about.

“Moldavite!” the Witch clapped her hand together, a warm smile spreading across her face, “welcome back, darling.”

“...ribbit,” the frog eyed her with annoyance.

“Yes, I’m so sorry, I’ll be more careful next time. Now, we do have quite a lot of work ahead of us, with any fair amount of luck,” she swept the hat off her head and bowed to the frog, “shall we?”

Without another noise the frog bounded onto her head, settled comfortably onto her long hair and vanished under the hat. The Witch extinguished the flame beneath her cauldron with a small pitcher of water and went about preparing some of her common ingredients for the day.

-

The sun rose slowly, the sky turned from golden to blue as it did every morning, and through the now bustling streets of the city strode a strange duo. Armed and armored, they were adventurers, as anyone could tell from the slightest glance. Adventurers were, of course, a common sight across all of Teltor-Dorndul, and these two were no different.

The first, a tan-skinned dwarf woman of no more than four-foot-two, and head to toe a warrior. She was almost as broad as she was wide, her strong, handsome face sporting a confident smile under mint eyes, her long, vibrant green hair tied back into a high ponytail. She was clad in bronze plate armor, angular and sturdy as all Dwarven crafts were, glinting brilliantly in the late morning sun. Overtop she donned a pine surcoat bearing her coat of arms, a handle which bore a blade on its top and a shattered pickaxe beneath, tied at the waist by a thick leather belt. On her back was a rounded metal shield, and from her hip hung a steel-headed warhammer. Down the left side of her neck, vanishing under her armor, was a nasty scar, the now healed flesh once savaged by some vicious attack.

Beside her walked an abnormally short orc woman, perhaps only five-foot-eleven, although her companion went a long way to making her look taller. Indeed, much about her was abnormal. She had all the strong features of a self-respecting orc, an aquiline nose, a sharp, squared jaw, two prominent tusks jutting from her lower lip, wild white hair left untamed save for being cut at the shoulders, but her skin was a strange pale blue, and she had four powerful, scarred arms she displayed quite proudly in a sleeveless top, vertically striped black and grey. Looking at her, one might have sworn she was entirely muscle, arms and legs like tree trunks, scars across every inch of her body. She walked barefoot, though wore a pair of baggy pants to match her top, broken up by a solid white sash tied round her waist and a bare midriff. She carried on one hip a bag, overflowing with yellowed scrolls and bits of cracked parchment, and on the other a plain dagger beside a strange, spectral sickle, ice blue, translucent and ever so slightly misty.

“Weren’t y’s’posed to be off by now?” the dwarf teased her companion, carrying a small, fancy black chest under one arm, “job’s done, after all.”

“Not leaving until I know this gold isn’t cursed anymore,” the orc responded, her voice was gruff, but quiet, “possessed townsfolk will be the mildest trouble if we start splashing it around Telthoril.”

“Mhm,” the Knight stretched her arms and rested them casually behind her head, enjoying the quiet hustle and bustle of the busy city, “well, I heard’ve someone who’ll curse check, witchy lady called Galakur or somesuch.”

“Galakiir, I read the same flier,” the orc fished a bright orange piece of paper from her bag, “storytelling, brews, curse detection.”

“Handy advertisin’ that. Thinkin’ of takin’ some out m’self.”

“Noisy dwarf, kills for gold.”

“Yeah!”

-

The Witch got a few customers as she worked, the occasional admirer stopped by to leave a gift, they never bothered to buy anything. She was a storyteller by trade, and while the rare visitor truly did seek to hear one of the world’s stories, the vast majority came for her more practical offerings. As she organized her shelves, a useless task as they were always quite clean, a shadow fell over her. She cleared her throat and adjusted her hat, turned around and came quite suddenly face to face with the waist of someone much taller than herself.

The Witch was by no means small, standing herself at a respectable six-foot-two, yet as she craned her neck up and up she found this caller to be taller by far. The new arrival was a Cyclopean man, a towering mountain of power at least ten-foot-seven, skin the color of stone and surely just as tough. His hair, midnight blue, was brushed back out of his face. He wore a pair of dark brown pants, a short-sleeved tunic of azure color and a shoulder piece made from a rhinoceros’ skull. On his back he carried not one, but three greatclubs in a leather sheath attached to the shoulder piece’s harness, and his single, piercing grey eye examined the Witch patiently.

The Witch steeled her nerves, swallowed and shakily addressed the cyclops, “ah, w-w-welcome, sir, to Astrari Galakiir’s humble storefront.”

The cyclops squinted his eye at her for a moment, then calmly extended his hand, and she had no option but to reciprocate the handshake. She tried to hide just how much her hand trembled, completely tiny compared to his own.

“Monodris,” he introduced himself. His voice was deep and rumbling, but it carried a note of warmth to it.

“Something I can help you with, Monodris?”

“Do you know Tovil Keln?” Monodris asked, “I am with the Wandering Artisans Guild.”

“You’re an artisan?” Astrari raised her eyebrows, then her cheeks tinged red with embarrassment. Now she had a moment to look closer, she saw the craftsmanship of his clubs, each carefully carved from a different tree trunk, narrowing into handles wrapped in simple leather. His shoulder piece, too, was made not of stark bone, but of white wood like the trees around Telthoril, and carved quite ornately with swirling patterns, “oh, do forgive me, of course you are.”

“Tovil sent a letter, claims he found an Ashkissed tree,” Monodris explained, brushing readily by the unintended offense.

“Ashkissed?” Astrari had never heard the term, but quickly realized it was not her business regardless, “apologies, none of my concern, I’m sure. I’ve never met a Tovil, but one of the guards may know.”

“Pardon me,” the snowy white hair of the orc adventurer craned into view around Monodris before the Artisan could answer, “are you Galakiir?”

“Oh, yes, I am!” Astrari gave her and her dwarf companion a quick, excited look, “are you here for a story?”

“Not quite, just hoping to check for a curse,” the orc took the chest from her companion, holding it up.

“Ah, right. I’ll be with you in just a moment,” Astrari looked up to Monodris, but before she could say another word to the Woodworker, noise began to stir amongst the crowd, rising steadily until at last a panicked shout broke the air.

The four looked about in confusion, but the orc was the first to look up with a cry of, “above!”

They all craned their necks to the sky, shielding their eyes. It was a bright sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and the moon was sliding all too rapidly in front of the sun.

“Fer the Gods’ sake, it’s an eclipse!” the dwarf woman rolled her eyes.

“The next eclipse isn’t for years,” Astrari reached for her staff, a twisted piece of wood with an orange, bulbous crystal of amber at its top. As she did, the moon slid fully into place in front of the sun, and the city was plunged into darkness. Across the marketplace small, swinging lanterns began to ignite with white flame, illuminating the space, but they could barely pierce the strange, choking cloak of artificial night.

No stars came to life, the dark blue of the night sky did not awaken, only inky blackness and the white corona of the eclipse.

“Kin barely see a thing!” the dwarf pulled the hammer from her hip. Even her eyes, built so readily for seeing in the dark, struggled to see more than fifteen feet ahead, “what’n the blazes is happenin’?”

“Just a moment, just a moment!” Astrari, who herself could see nothing, tapped her staff against the side of her pot. Tiny, glowing spheres of light, like dozens of fireflies, began to float out. They did almost nothing to pierce the darkness, even all together, they could only just about illuminate her stall.

In the darkness, they could see other beacons of light begin to appear, as guards managed to fumble their way through the darkness and ignite their lanterns. Two, then four, then six guards appeared, shouting to each other over the panicked din of civilians.

Then they heard it. A deep, booming voice that spoke in a language that none could recognize, but they felt its meaning as they felt the voice’s deep bass in their bones. A single word that echoed all around the city and all around them.

“Conquer.”

A growling overtook the din of the crowd, a vicious snarl that quickly had everyone holding their breath in fear. Then, the first guard’s light was extinguished, plucked away into the darkness. The crowd began to scream, rushing to get to sources of light, any opportunity to see what was going on.

The others guards scrambled to group up, even as a second was vanished, they boxed in back to back with civilians between them, blades pointed into the suffocating dark. Around them, the magic lanterns were grabbed, snuffed out. People started to get grabbed, pulled into the shadows and silenced.

“Is it the light?” Astari’s eyes widened.

“Put it out!” the orc grabbed her pitcher and dumped water over the cauldron, just as another light came on behind her.

The dwarf had a hand on her chest, arcane energies began to weave through the threads of her surcoat, becoming brilliant white light shining out fifteen, maybe twenty feet.

“Svaudra, what are you doing?!”

“Right here!”

“Oh, great!” the orc grabbed her dagger and sickle, backing up into a martial stance.

Out of the darkness, a monstrous hound pounced, fur like tar and pale, milky white eyes. Svaudra brought her shield up to catch it as it snapped and barked in her face, its mouth full of rows and rows of razor sharp teeth, bloodied and vicious.

“Ha! C’mon!”