The city sank into a slow chaos. Everyone was traveling between states of terror and fascination. None of those who lived here remembered the terrible days when we were little more than experimental cattle for the elves. But the old ones lived with cold sweats whenever one of them passed. Seeing them reminded them of all the years of battles, all the deaths caused by those now called "saviors," "High Elves," "beautiful people"—that was garbage! Worse still, many of my followers were with them.
Their arrival was terrible. Mounted on sea creatures or boats of mystical wood, singing songs of pain and sorrow, they arrived when chaos was at its peak—not inside the cities, of course, but everywhere else where death had forgotten the souls of the people fallen there and raised them to serve those who sought only death. In almost none of the locations under the Whitecaps' protection did this occur. The main reason was that the corruption filters we used to keep the air clean also kept undead enemies away. Despite all this, I had more pressing problems. My personal secretary, without telling me, in the middle of a meeting with the other mages, had just despised my teachings and created a new faction called the Blackcaps, dedicated to pure destructive magic. For the first time, I realized where I stood. So many years living only in inventions, and I had left all teaching in the hands of a maniac. He said it was a way to avenge all the losses, among them his son. At first, his passionate arguments made me accept. The Redcaps were happy to reduce my power and take a more belligerent stance. None of them listened to me.
Falling silent, I could hear that—silence. With the Blackcaps' departure, a great number of followers of my secretary's stance left with him. Now I only had a few low-level mages and many idealists like me, without real knowledge of what was happening in my city or its surroundings.
I had barely begun to organize this place when a call came. My crystal was passive, receiving only the energy fluctuations that roamed my city. I had called all the Whitecap mages of the surrounding cities in an attempt to receive support. So when the receiver glowed, I thought it was one of them. But it was not. With an intense blue light, the mirror reflected a beautiful creature—richly dressed, dazzling. He introduced himself as the King of the Elves and requested my help to eliminate the threat of a being so perfidious that it had even unleashed the forces of the Chaos Marks upon our world. A false creature calling itself the Overlord and, by his subjects, the Dark Lord. The Elf King said he would send envoys for a meeting on the coast outside my city. For this, he requested—with payment—a considerable amount of material and human resources. He assured all would be rewarded. I immediately realized I was not the only voice in my study. Approaching the windows, I could see that a mirage outside my city was giving the same invitations to the people, who—I feared—would go.
The days for the meeting approached. Feeling guilty but doing it anyway, I began to probe the city of Stormhammer. Beneath its surface was corruption. The police acted badly, generating pain, discomfort. Many mercenaries destroyed entire ecosystems for rewards, to the point of eliminating whole species or destroying trees for greedy merchants whose greed was never satisfied. Like this, I could not do much! Everyone rushed gladly into the arms of these elves who—no matter who said what—I had engraved in multiple books written by trustworthy humans, speaking of indescribable evil, only matched by centuries of time and power. I was still unwilling to let people go. Yet if I did not grant them permission, it was very likely they would leave the city and expose themselves to the dubious protection of the elves.
Although the envoy came with pompous documents, despite the guarantees of the mercenaries who were paid in jewels to ensure no harm would befall during the visit, I did not trust them. Not only because of the readings—the communication mirror proved me right. The power they sent to activate it was not regulated. A burst of magic of that level splintered the mirror. Something like that said they did not feel what they said, or they did not consider that we had evolved over all these years and treated us like monkeys or primitive farmers.
Finally, I went to one of my closest students. Young, but with an aged and venerable appearance from so many hours of magic and sleepless nights, everyone called him Greybeard. His robes were always stained with grime and reeking of tobacco. He did not seem bothered by my request to go spy. He even agreed to carry a small viewer, which would transmit to me what he saw. Perhaps so many years living in magic had made him desire to be something else. His activities there would be more those of a spy than someone devoted to the arts. Yet that was precisely what I needed—someone who, out of curiosity, would investigate things. Greed and avarice had damaged my city, weakened it. But that was not necessarily bad. While he traveled, I would take advantage of what must come. All those who wanted to eat for free or see a spectacle would leave. Who would be convenient to let return?