At the bottom of the world lies the city of Ymra. It is as much a country as it is a city – a vast expanse of homes, workshops, places of business, and places of pleasure. It is split up and divided into manageable chunks by roads and walkways. In between it all innumerable alleys are scattered, some dark no matter the time of day, dead-ends both to journeys and lives.
Ymra is one city, divided. Having grown too large to be controlled by a single ruling body, different factions have torn it in pieces and divided it amongst each other. In Ymra however, few people learn from history, and the factions are locked in a battle for territory and power, complete control of Ymra being the ultimate goal, impossible though it may be.
Possibly more than anywhere else, Ymra is a haven for rogues and agents, each faction offering opportunities for ambitious mercenaries. Given the sheer number of these hired messengers, of word or of action, many legends about particularly accomplished members of the group develop. In fact, the war between factions, and especially their reliance on mercenaries to carry out their more secretive business, has led to a society and a culture with a deeply ingrained obsession with these agents and their individual accomplishment. So much so, that the recorded history of Ymra is just as much a recording of the actions of agents in faction employ as it is a history of faction power levels and territories.
Any self-respecting library in Ymra has a section dedicated to the stories of famous mercenaries, often focusing on the mercenaries that have worked for the local ruling faction, or mercenaries born in the local area. Some even focus on a single specific mercenary, giving them more attention in historic scrolls and often electing them a patron mercenary of the library and neighbourhood, incorporating the name of the agent into the name of the institution or community. Most mercenaries operate under a nickname that they have given themselves, been given by an employer, or even in some cases been given by a victim. Thus some libraries, churches and neighbourhoods in Ymra have names like The Library of the Silent Storm, Silver Tongue Tyrra Church, or Community of Goldeye the first.
To an outsider unfamiliar with the workings of Ymra, like a hunter from the Green Belt or a farmer from the Endless Plains, this way of elevating mercenaries above everymen, clergy and even the leaders hiring the rogues themselves could seem absurd. For the citizens of Ymra however, it is the most natural thing in the world. Stories of hired blades are told in pubs and inns as entertainment, they are told in churches as moral guides, they are told to get the children to sleep at night, and they are recollected and dreamed of as an escape from what is often a harsh life in the urban sprawl.
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There was a bird of prey flying high above the canopy of roofs in the Township of Swiftmouth in Ymra, although even a trained eye would be hard pressed to spot it. Set against a dark night sky, the only way to know it was there was to notice that in one tiny spot in the sky stars seemed to blink, or disappear momentarily, as if hidden by shadow for a brief moment.
That night it would have been easier to spot the dark shape moving across that same canopy of roofs – effortlessly making its way from one roof to the next, nimbly skipping along over streets and alleys to some unknown destination – but only just. The shape, should you be skilled and lucky enough to spot it, would have resembled a cloaked figure, the cloak waving in the wind behind a slim figure during every jump, wrapping around it tightly at every landing. It moved fast, determined, and in a straight line. It obviously knew where it was going, and wished to get there as fast as possible. There was a real elegance to the dark figure, and it demonstrated great agility and coordination as it leapt towards its goal. Not far behind it another, slightly smaller shape followed. This was also the shape of a cloaked figure, but seemingly carrying something on its back. Despite the apparent burden of the extra load, this figure moved with almost equal grace as the first.
Where they were going, only they could know. However, the location where this transpired being where it was, it was almost certain that someone had a very unpleasant surprise coming to them before the night was over, if they had not received it already.
