Silenced Whispers
Story Emits
Despite the shocking claims in the Assembly of Peers, the response from the population of Arx seems strangely muted. Talk of ancient legends and elves is received with mostly incredulity and a dismissiveness from the commons that they'll believe it when they see it, and a wait to see what comes of Princess Deva's and Princess Isolde's proposed trip to negotiate with the forces responsible for the King's Rest. Response from outside the city is even more strangely silent and more than a week passes with no reply from the many domains of the Peers of the Realm. Soon it becomes apparent why. Most of the domains never received word that the Assembly had met at all, and nearly no messenger bearing word of what has happened to any of the hundreds of domains reached their destination. The Knights of Solace report an unusually large number of corpses found on the roads in the following weeks, most of the messengers found thought killed by shavs. The explanation is widely accepted by most of the commons, but it doesn't explain some of the other odd happenings, such as the disappearance of the Legate of the Shield and her her entire escort as she was traveling to Sanctum, nor ships vanishing with their entire crews enroute to Maelstrom, Setarco or Darkwater Watch, nor a few scholars that had acted as scribes for the Assembly of Peers going missing in the following days.
At the urging of his landlord, the Iron Guard have forced entry to the apartment of one Master Wolbrand, a local jeweler. An inquisitor called to the empty room reports an untouched setting of tea for two, a locked door, and strange scorch marks on the carpet before the chairs. Of the man himself, there is not a trace, and the Inquisition puts out a somewhat halfhearted call for those with information pertaining to his whereabouts to step forward.
Almost everyone in Arx who was at all interested in the political world knew that a delegation of Arxians was chosen to try and make contact with the mysterious Nox'Alfar - the other party in an ancient treaty the Compact entered into under Alarice the Great.
Their departure was not advertised. They slipped from the city as casually as they could, trying to avoid the fate that had recently met the messengers carrying word from the High Lords to the corners of the realm. Whatever happened in the forest, it is only a few hours after dawn the next day when the party returns, dirty but whole.