Elven Fortress

The underground fortress was the last stronghold in the war with the humans and a crucial fortification in the war with the elves—it was fought over many times. It all ended abruptly: demons summoned by dark elf sorcerers burned the fortress to the ground and slaughtered the elves defending it in the most brutal manner. Since then, the place has been truly dangerous: the ghosts of fallen warriors and evil spirits are drawn here, for the power of black magic lingers here.

The guard tells about this Starden, and tells it as an eyewitness. "I was once a cheerful elf, I loved poetry and songs, but after the war, nothing remained of my former carefree spirit," he says, recalling watching his friends perish. Another time, he recalls the siege itself: he, Rumiel, and several dozen brother guards met the dark elves surrounding the fortress. They didn't engage in open battle; they attacked in quick, sweeping attacks, slowly wearing them down. Rumiel suffered the most: that battle wounded his delicate soul more deeply than anyone else.

There is a second version of events, from a man who is ashamed. The merchant Unoren He confesses: he was there during the final battle and remembers every detail—how, overcome with fear, he thought only of his own salvation and abandoned his screaming comrades. The despair of the dead, according to Magister Esrandel, gave birth to the curse, which is sustained by the residual black magic of the dark elves and the power of the spirits they summoned, which were absorbed into the very foundations of the fortress.

Unoren wishes to bring peace to the fallen and asks for bone fragments and three elven skulls—certainly whole, without a single flaw. Such, according to Esrandel, are only removed from dark horrors; misty horrors and shadow-horrors are akin to them and are found here.