Human Continent – City of Ethrendale, Federation Banking District
The inner streets of Ethrendale gleamed under lamplight, cobblestones slick from a fine evening drizzle. The rain had not been heavy enough to clear the air, only enough to trap the scent of damp stone and coal smoke beneath the low clouds. Lanterns swayed on iron hooks above shuttered shopfronts, and the rhythmic clop of horses' hooves on wet stone carried far in the stillness.
Merchants, hunched in their cloaks, shut their ledger books for the night, posting guards outside their counting houses. Federation patrols moved in practiced loops — not vigilant, merely present — their boots splashing through shallow puddles. Somewhere, a clock chimed the quarter-hour, the sound bouncing off the marble arch of the Central Bank.
High above, where the wind curled like a serpent around the rain-slick spire of the old clocktower, a man stood as if the stone itself had been shaped to hold him.
Vorthas Vel Azriel.
