A green haired elf ascends the rant stand, dressed in the blue and silver uniform of the Knights of the Cerulean Stars. Citizens may recognise the reclusive former Senator, Eowiel Senella, who rumours say spends most of her days cloistered within either the private libraries of the Bardic College, or behind a desk in Cerulean HQ with her longtime friend and commanding officer Lycka Zomasdottir.
"My fellow citizens, what a long time it has been since I stepped up here before you! Not since nine became one, and longer, I daresay, but that is not what I wish to speak of.
You may know of late I have made the chronicling of history one of my chief distractions, as I rightly leave the destiny of our beloved Jewel of the Icelace to younger generations. It is the call of history that has brought me before you this morning!
A long time ago, the Nars Pass was infested with a rapacious enemy, and travel across our rugged, wild and wonderous country was ever a challenge. Why, to get from Peltarch to Norwick or back again one had to either know the secret, untrafficked bushways, or brave the roads well armed or ready to pay a steep price in gold or blood. For generations this malice laid claim to the roads, the bridges and the byways across our country, and for generations the free peoples of Narfell united again and again to oppose them.
I cannot count how many times they marshaled their armies to march north, the pass painted ghastly orange and purple with their numbers, the ground quaking with their accursed Warmachines, the air abuzz with the lightning of their Evokers. I cannot count how many times their assassins tried to creep behind our walls in the dead of night, slipping into the homes of our leaders to shed their blood as they slept.
And all for what? So one man could say, "This bridge, this pass, this...this is mine, and none others!" Now that man is dead. General Grag of the Legion put his mighty axe in his neck, and since that day...bar some interruptions...we have had the freedom to travel the length and breadth of our country.
Now, of course, we all know that Grag's heirs have closed the way east. The Temple of Helm, the temple of legends such as Shane Andryll and Kanen Hightower, just liberated from the foul demonic forces surrounding it now stands isolated once more. Why? Does the Legion no longer trust its oldest and its truest allies?
I personally have fought side by side against Narfell's foes with General Grag, with General Lyte, and yes, with General Theon too.
For centuries Peltarch has been the anvil upon which the hammer of evil has smashed, time and time again as it rears its filthy head, and this is our repayment? To have our friends turn their backs on us, to sling accusations at us, to make demands of us? To have our King PROSTRATE himself before them? How much of our blood must be shed for all of Narfell before WE are the ones owed debts!?
When I have bled in the service of the Jewel, the Jewel has bled in the service of our whole country, and what thanks have we now? Our farmers must work themselves to their bones to service a debt? Do not mistake my, my friends, the duergar and what they did to the dwarves of the Hold are vile, and I mourn their losses. But I challenge the notion we turned our backs out of cowardice! The Jewel has proven a thousand times that we will fight for our countrymen if we can!
The one time we could not aid our allies, they dare to call us craven!? How many wars has Peltarch fought without them!? They have come here a time, but have they come every time as they demand of us? For every dwarf that fell in that terrible battle, how many HUNDREDS of our citizens have died to the Eastlander, to the N'Jast, to the Orcs, to the Fire Giants?
But no! OUR singular failing must be paid back, but ONLY ours!
I say it is UNJUST. I say it is hypocrisy! I say they have repaid our centuries of service to Narfell by spitting in our face! We were brothers, once, and together we freed all of Narfell. What are we now? Once we repay this blood debt levied upon us, what are we then? I do not know. But we are brothers no more."
With that rueful conclusion, the elf departs from the stage quickly, vanishing back within the Bardic College as abruptly as she emerged, leaving onlookers wondering if it would be another decade before her next public intervention.
