Community

There was a long, very intense silence.

"Alright, then."

Anaksi motioned to her men. They looked displeased, but obeyed her. The carts were turned around, and the eladrin prepared to return the way they had come.

"But know this, small, weak-minded beings. Our race is long lived, even compared to you, dwarves. When you have forgotten this day, we will still remember. When your grandchildren are asking your children why the roads that lead to Mt. Gargoth have been left so long unused, I will still be watching you myself. Today, the honor of the high race has been sullied."

"You may not realize the magnitude of what you have done. But you will. Maybe not in your lifetimes, but soon enough."

And with that, the eladrin left.

"You see!" Said Chief Waylir, "I told you we should have pressured the dwarven homeland! Now the lowlings too seek to rise against us, and it all could have been avoided so easily!"

"I see also," said Chief Alios, "that your hothead of a niece may well be responsible for ruining any chance of peace that there may have been."

"Are you honestly so smallminded as to think Anaksi is the cause of this? Are you truly so insecure in your status that you would turn even this catastrophe into an excuse to attack my tribe?"

"Enough," the high chief silenced them, "we've had enough bickering for today...and tomorrow, for that matter."

The elders stood in the open-aired atrium of their temple, surrounding the Eye of the Sun. The Eye's view drifted over the landscape, seeking that which the elders were searching for.

"Now then," he said, "we must decide."

There was more bickering for a little while. Finally, a decision was made.

A handful of Gargoth halflings who sympathized the most with their eladrin lords were sent back to the Golden Hills. These halflings would offer promises of land, riches, and freedom from dwarven hegemony to their brethren, attracting more farmers to Mt. Gargoth to compensate for the loss of trade. Even so, however, there would not be quite enough food to support the new generation of children for some time yet. Thus, the elders had decided that the eladrin must expand.

Using the Eye of the Sun, the elders located a land of meadows and forests some distance away from the known country. Not far from this site, a new race had been discovered; fiery-haired humanoids with some rather unnerving pastimes, but who didn't seem necessarily hostile. A large group of eladrin set off to seek their fortune in this direction. Hopefully, these blood-letters would prove more reliable in their friendship than the dwarves and their lackeys.

(cold steel? As in, the recruiters were actually murdered? Damn)

A few of the more numerous eladrin tribes (most notably the Alios) resumed trade with the dwarves and halflings, mostly out of neccessity. Most of them, however, did not; not surprisingly, the Waylir were among the most dedicated of these. Instead, the concentrated their energy on improving the output of their own halfling subjects, some of them building tribal houses in the foothills of the mountain in order to be closer to their livelihood. The poorer among them even took to farming themselves, though they weren't quite as good at it as the halflings.

Meanwhile, the eladrin emigrants made their way to the land that they had chosen.

The minor chieftain and other elders who led the voyage were learned, and knew Supernal from studying astronomy. They thought they understood most of their speech, but something must have been lost in translation.

Hoping that this was the case, the eladrin stopped their approach.

"Greetings, scarred ones," said the chieftain, "we, the people of the sun, come in friendship."