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Description
the next page is here: faile35.deviantart.com/art/Boo… . For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

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Next, Elina makes a quick-but-thorough perusal of the maps and diagrams in her possession. Immediately drawing her attention is a map of the city-state of Dernhem and its bordering realm, accompanied by a scribbling of notes pertaining to threats to the local populace and the sovereignty of the Magistracy. The notes are penned, Elina believes, by Luther, with additions by Theonius and Captain Tarkin. Of most interest to her are a series of plagues moving almost regularly into Dernhem down the trade road from the northern settlements around the city of Hahn, including the outbreak of Cradlerot Plague that decimated the village of Eiger when Elina was a child. But the notes suggest that even with small hordes of wormloat gremlins terrorizing the surrounding realm, the Cradlerot outbreak was relatively minor in its affects in Dernhem proper where continual waves of Brittling Fever and the Swallowchills have claimed hundreds of lives throughout the countryside roughly every five years.

Besides the recorded plagues, incidents of brigandage along the western road south of Merwood have been tallied from the reports of road patrols that have grown more infrequent as Dernhem's resources have fagged. The Scholar's interest piques when she recognizes the work of several of Luther's agents operating along the troubled western reach, including Valerin Caldwyre and Deirdre of the Wood, whose Fadings are both present not ten farlings from where she studies. The notes speak of a constant war being waged back and forth, from the very gates of Dernhem city out almost to the bridge over the River Varde. Also from the west have come infestations, vermin and pestilence blown on fierce winds from the dusty lost lands into the Mitesceru Family Estate and the farmlands protected by Dernhem. Jackrats have expanded in colonies, Scourge-heggers have destroyed cropland, and Sleeper's Bane plants have assailed the gardens and paths in vast numbers, to say nothing of the less hidden and potentially more troublesome menaces of Red Mold and Frostbats bringing devastation to grain and livestock.

To the south lies the threat of economic domination by the Merchant Princes of Port Sessen and their mercenary forces, with the Family Aliandis placed as a strategic buffer, albeit one eager to extend its own influence into Dernhem's markets. Cutthroat mercantilism, sabotage, and murder have ever plagued the southern trade routes and sapped the profits from all but the most determined and powerful of merchant enterprises, and the notes scribbled in the map's margins and on reverse pages paint a grim, bloody picture to dot the land between Elina's home at the Villios Family Estate and the northern reaches of the Aliandis Family lands to the south.

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Interested parties (you know who you are... ) have asked me for Valerin's last name. It will be some version/spelling of Caldwyre, and the fact that she has a last name means she comes from some family with land and money, if not a minor title. But bounty hunter isn't really that noble of a trade (unless your last name is Fett, apparently), so maybe not. Also, I'm linking this page to the crisp, color map erick288 posted of the lands surrounding Dernhem for a point of reference.

The reference for Elina was provided, as always, by Feathered-pics who is a lot of fun to draw. Thanks, Emily!

Enjoy!

Description
the next page is here: faile35.deviantart.com/art/Boo… . For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

***********************************************

Next, Elina makes a quick-but-thorough perusal of the maps and diagrams in her possession. Immediately drawing her attention is a map of the city-state of Dernhem and its bordering realm, accompanied by a scribbling of notes pertaining to threats to the local populace and the sovereignty of the Magistracy. The notes are penned, Elina believes, by Luther, with additions by Theonius and Captain Tarkin. Of most interest to her are a series of plagues moving almost regularly into Dernhem down the trade road from the northern settlements around the city of Hahn, including the outbreak of Cradlerot Plague that decimated the village of Eiger when Elina was a child. But the notes suggest that even with small hordes of wormloat gremlins terrorizing the surrounding realm, the Cradlerot outbreak was relatively minor in its affects in Dernhem proper where continual waves of Brittling Fever and the Swallowchills have claimed hundreds of lives throughout the countryside roughly every five years.

Besides the recorded plagues, incidents of brigandage along the western road south of Merwood have been tallied from the reports of road patrols that have grown more infrequent as Dernhem's resources have fagged. The Scholar's interest piques when she recognizes the work of several of Luther's agents operating along the troubled western reach, including Valerin Caldwyre and Deirdre of the Wood, whose Fadings are both present not ten farlings from where she studies. The notes speak of a constant war being waged back and forth, from the very gates of Dernhem city out almost to the bridge over the River Varde. Also from the west have come infestations, vermin and pestilence blown on fierce winds from the dusty lost lands into the Mitesceru Family Estate and the farmlands protected by Dernhem. Jackrats have expanded in colonies, Scourge-heggers have destroyed cropland, and Sleeper's Bane plants have assailed the gardens and paths in vast numbers, to say nothing of the less hidden and potentially more troublesome menaces of Red Mold and Frostbats bringing devastation to grain and livestock.

To the south lies the threat of economic domination by the Merchant Princes of Port Sessen and their mercenary forces, with the Family Aliandis placed as a strategic buffer, albeit one eager to extend its own influence into Dernhem's markets. Cutthroat mercantilism, sabotage, and murder have ever plagued the southern trade routes and sapped the profits from all but the most determined and powerful of merchant enterprises, and the notes scribbled in the map's margins and on reverse pages paint a grim, bloody picture to dot the land between Elina's home at the Villios Family Estate and the northern reaches of the Aliandis Family lands to the south.

***********************************************

Interested parties (you know who you are... ) have asked me for Valerin's last name. It will be some version/spelling of Caldwyre, and the fact that she has a last name means she comes from some family with land and money, if not a minor title. But bounty hunter isn't really that noble of a trade (unless your last name is Fett, apparently), so maybe not. Also, I'm linking this page to the crisp, color map erick288 posted of the lands surrounding Dernhem for a point of reference.

The reference for Elina was provided, as always, by Feathered-pics who is a lot of fun to draw. Thanks, Emily!

Enjoy!