Part I
This used to be a quiet place.
In years past, the Isle of Lizardmen was a humble trading outpost, primarily settled and managed by its titular race of hominid reptiles. On most maps known by the Common Races, the Coiled Archipelago was the westernmost corner of civilization civilized enough to warrant a stop in most perennial trading routes. Of course the Lizardmen were never much reputed for their warmth and cordiality, but their obsession with coin and wealth assured that their ports were always open to vessels of both sea and air looking to do business.
Still, even in those days, the Isle never saw more than a handful of ships at port at one time. Several human mercantile enterprises every summer by galleon to trade ores for spices. Dwarven brigantines every winter to trade crafts and weaponry. Once every few years there would even be a skyship full of the secretive automatons from the southern deserts, whenever they found themselves in need of textiles and updated literature.
Now literally dozens of vessels circled the islands like starving vultures. In the past year, Wynn had never seen so many incoming factions, all here in one place. It must have been getting dire in the eastern realms.
Most of the skyships and dirigibles and all manner of airborne contraption had been forced to land on the other islands in the archipelago, while every sea vessel crammed together bow to stern, competing for every inch of claimable anchor space. The shores and beaches, and much of the unsettled parts of the island, were set up with camps and makeshift shanties, housing those desperate to stand on solid ground.
Many of the island’s lowlying brush had been cleared away or harvest, while the palms had been felled for construction and firewood. The wildlife, which used to be loud, plentiful, and colorful, had either been killed for food or wisely migrated off of the island altogether.
If it weren’t for the resident elves and their fleet of hawk-eyed sorcerers, the Lizardmen would have likely been entirely overrun, and the Isle would have descended into cutthroat chaos.
The Aurelian Cooperative, a multi-national trading organization shared between most of the differing elven races, had long ago worked with the natives to set up a semi-permanent residence in the Isle of Lizardmen. The location was remote enough to keep elves removed from most of eastern societies, but accessible enough to maintain a tentative diplomatic and economical connection to the Common Races.
No one had ever asked or granted permission for the elves to settle; they simply did. That was how elves usually operated. When the Lizardmen posed objections, the elves made it worth their while and continued on with their work. To this day, the only place to regularly see an elf aside from the odd straggler in the eastern realms was here. On the Isle of Lizardman. Of all the sodding places.
Implausible to most who’d never been there. That was rather the point.
Well, they were certainly observed now.
The influx of refugees from their ruined nations had become unmanageable. Other Rim World nations had themselves suffered the strain and nearly collapsed from the incoming masses alone, separate from the arcane destruction of the eastern hemisphere. The Aurelian Cooperative were now here in force to execute an initiative that would hopefully mitigate the inevitable impact to the elven civilizations of the west.
Give them jobs. That was the aim. Filter them for aptitudes, and then transport them to where they’ll be useful. Controlled. The elven empires had lasted too long to buckle under the weight of the Common Races.
The Aurelian Cooperative had created stations at each of the Isle’s ports. Wynn found herself at the southern end of the island, seated at a table in a grand white pavilion, while races of every size and color littered the marble steps that led into the city proper—the place itself being a bizarre hodgepodge of ivory pillars and thatched roof huts.
Golden robed sorcerers maintained the queues up to the tables, where desperate refugees had gathered to beg the Cooperative for a chance at a new life.
“Thief isn’t a profession, Miss Vulix,” Wynn muttered, tapping her stylus against the paper. The elf’s cheek was tucked against one hand as her violet eyes squared on the fidgeting kobold in front of her. A head of golden hair was pinned into a signature weave that had already begun to fray out of pure exasperation. “We’re not looking for any spies either. Is there anything useful you can do?”
“Ah, er…” The kobold patted itself down, then pulled a handful of miscellany out of its right pocket. In its scaled palm was a pitiful collection of brass keys, foreign coins, and a girl’s barrette. “Can find many treasures. Shiny trinkets. Gold, jeweled, valuable! Elf like?”
Wynn stood out of her chair to peer over the table for a better look at the kobold’s treasures. For the High King’s sake, it was an overgrown lizard, and only half as bright as an actual Lizardman. The thing would be better served as target practice in the Prince’s personal garden.
“Perhaps... you’ll do well in the sapphire mines. Yes?”
The kobold looked uncertain.
“Yes, we’ll do that. Yrwalen?” The name awakened a bored nearby sorcerer from his vigil. “Take Miss Vulix to the Miner’s guild, would you?”
“But—” The kobold looked quickly between the two elves, hastily shoving its treasures back into its pockets. The barrette clattered to the ground, forgotten. “Me no want—wait!”
Yrwalen led the kobold by the shoulder to a dusty road through the pavilion, becoming unnervingly complacent as soon as the elf touched it. Wynn scribbled something onto the scroll unfurled before her, then with her pen slashed a long horizontal rule through the page and descended to the next line. She had already seemed to forget about whatever fate to which the kobold was being led just over her shoulder.
“Next?” she beckoned the next in line, without living her head. The fingers on her unoccupied hand curled inward. “Come forward. Al Runic? Benechag? Common?” Without waiting for a response, she continued in Common anyway. “Name and trade, please. Any family members to document?”
