Vestalla
Ten Years Before
The cracked stones lay strewn across the ancient streets. All around, the ruins of towers and ornate buildings stand shattered.
A battalion of men, armoured and adorned in brilliant white marched through the ruined city, their spears glinting in the twilight.
They gathered in the square outside the great keep in the centre of the city. On a weathered stone pedestal the feet of a statue remained and nothing else. Was this, then, the memorial to a hero of this place? An idol of one of their forgotten gods? A king? None of the soldiers knew.
Within the keep the dust of a millenium rose into the air, disturbed by the first footsteps since this city had been abandoned and walled off. Once, this had been the heart of the greatest of nations, the city of the Gods themselves. But those Gods had fallen, cast out by their own creations and long-since forgotten in the minds of men. But though Man had forgotten the Gods and their city in the east, where people of all races could walk free amongst the Gods themselves, the Eladrin had not. Though the Gods had departed they had left many wonders lying within their great city all these centuries. Wonders that the knowledge of could be used to elevate the people of the world to greatness...or reduce their world to ashes. And so, though their makers had left this world, the Eladrin stood watch, ever vigilant that none ever set foot into the city of the Gods.
That morning the Eladrin armies had fallen to the armies of Thuul, the One True God, and their priests from the city of Bellemont far to the west.
Within the keep those priests gathered now, deep in the bowels of this wondrous city to hear the words of the High Priest Devansque and see the lost wonders of the Gods. Soon they would return to the Grand Temple in Bellemont with what they had found to examine the artifacts in the safety of their own lands.
For now, however, they basked in their victory.
Today
Another average day in the market square of Bellemont. Crowds mingled amongst the stalls, vendors hollering above the din to grab the attention of the shoppers. Each of you had come here for your own purposes and none suspected what would come next.
The crowd parted like the sea at the bow of a ship as the Thuulian soldiers rushed into the square, their lances bright as the white tabards they wore. They seemed in pursuit of someone, pushing the shoppers aside.
"Get him! Stop the thief!" The soldier at the front of the troop bellowed pointing towards a lean, dark-haired man shoving his way through the masses.
You had never seen this man before in your lives, though he appeared to be a scribe from the Grand Temple, by his garb. Nor have you had any real trouble with the church or desire to get between the law and a thief in a situation like this. And yet, inexplicably, you found yourself moving between the soldiers and the man. You felt this was right, that this must be done...
