Before jumping to the mission at hand, familiarise yourself with the city of Dexia, its peculiarities, its inhabitants, and its geography.

Dexia is a small mining city, built by the Republic of Primia after uncovering a large vein of iron in the mountain range nearby, on the east side of The Spines. The city runs alongside the Ferroso, a river that flows 3 kilometers to the east of Dexia, the natural border between Primia and the Empire; the major iron vein is linked with a 5-kilometer-long, 15-meter-wide paved road to the city centre and its immense Plaza of Ironworks.

The Plaza is crossed by a deep canal, once flowing with water diverted from the Ferroso by a dam, which is now empty. The stone fountain at the centre, topped by the statue of a blacksmith, is currently off. The two sides of the large Plaza are joined by 4 bridges.

The Plaza of Ironworks

The Plaza of Ironworks is the massive 400-meter square at the centre of Dexia, around which the entire city sprawls. The Plaza was designed by the Republic of Primia at the foundation of Dexia, 166 years ago, to be the meeting point for iron traders and smiths. Being farther from Primia’s largest mining town of Secundia, the Republic preferred to leave the seemingly inferior iron mined from Dexia to the artisans, together with the labour required to transport it around.

Now that the iron is proven to be as good as it is in Secundia, the Plaza still acts as a trading hub of iron and iron items. The southern side of the Plaza is traditionally reserved for the Iron Mining Works, while the northern side is frequented by iron artisans, smiths, and wandering merchants. The Ducal Blacksmiths, artisans that are employed by the Duchess, have a richly decorated stall in the centre of the Plaza.

Being an important trading centre, the entire city of Dexia every night gets covered by thick cotton sheets (colloquially called blankets) to shield it from the negative influence of the Night. The Plaza in particular is so busy that a merchant can be found there even in the dead of night. Around the Plaza there are numerous hostels where smiths, artisans, and envoys can eat, drink, and sleep.

The most famous inns are the following, from the cheapest to the most luxurious:

• The Restless Donkey
• The Gentle Night
• Silky Sheets
• The Blacksmith’s Outpost

They are often full of people at every hour, just like the Plaza. Patrons of the inns tend to come from all over the Realms, as Primia’s iron and steel are renowned and sought after.

The Plaza also hosts the Magicate Embassy, protected at all times by ten Paladins in full arms.

Dexia’s Outskirts

Other than the large Plaza, Dexia hosts a good deal of houses. Dexia’s population has boomed in recent times, reaching up to 150,000 individuals. Nearest to the square are the houses of merchants, nobles, and politicians from Primia, but also alchemy shops and surgeons, while farthest away lie the houses of working-class people, mainly iron workers. The city of Dexia has modest stone walls all around it, and it is not equipped to sustain an assault; lacking a true "fortified" command centre in the middle, that wall is the only line of defence of the city.

The walls have 3 entrances: the eastern door leads to the river, bordering the dried-up canal; the northern door leads to Primia through the farmer’s fields; while the southern door opens on the road that leads to the iron mines.

Outside of the walls, on the northern side, lie fields and fields of wheat and fruit. Farmers there do not benefit from the blankets and keep largely away from the trading route towards the capital. To sustain the ever-increasing population, the Duchess of Dexia, Yolanda, has sponsored a deforesting operation to free space for the fields. The demand for meat is covered by the shepherds from The Spines, the mountains near the mines, largely of Fuente heritage.

The eastern road that leads to the river, which was disused up to twenty years ago, has now been fully requalified as it is the most direct way to get flowing water. Before the dam, water flowed directly into the city; but now, a steady commerce of water has flourished. Officially, water cannot be sold in Dexia. What is sold is the delivery service that many people are forced to pay as they do not have the time to go to the river themselves. The trade is profitable and requires low investments, just donkeys. Currently, the majority of the trade is conducted by a single merchant, Fariseo Oelman, with a "fleet" of around 50 donkeys. All the others conduct their business by themselves; however, there are rumours that secretly, the Two Swords of Esteban Weldres are behind these other couriers, and trying to enter this business alone risks getting marked for punishment by the Two. It is not unusual for couriers to be found dead outside the walls, apparently killed by the Night.

The southern door leads to the Iron Road. In the middle of it, far from both the city and the iron mines, there are a series of kilns that are used to smelt raw iron and obtain iron ingots. The coal required to power these kilns is delivered from the deforestation of the woods on the north of Dexia.

The Iron Mines

The beating heart of Dexia and the reason the city exists in the first place, the iron mines lie at the end of the large Iron Road, at the foothills of The Spines. The mines are surrounded by a wooden wall, heavily guarded by Duchess Yolanda’s militias and by Overseeress Knarf, the Duchess’ third-grade cousin. The guards ensure all operations are conducted smoothly and taxes are paid in earnest. Yolanda’s rule imposes that tax is paid either in money, or in a hybrid money-raw materials system. In the second case, Yolanda’s militias exact the raw materials tax before the miners can even go outside of the mine’s walls; in exchange, the total value of the tax is slightly less than what it ought to be. Outside of the wooden palisade lie some buildings, namely a small inn for the Works representatives who somehow got stuck in the mines at Nightfall, and for miners who prefer spending the night there instead of coming home and then returning to work the next day.

In a secured building beside the palisade, all the raw materials collected by the miners are stored and marked with the sigil of the Works whose miner works for. Ducal materials, on the other hand, are preserved in another

smaller building, guarded day and night.

There are 3 Works that extract iron from the mine. The largest two, the Works of the Hammer and the Works of Sir Lancit, hail from Primia. The Works for Iron Extraction has been given the benefit to work and hails from the Federated Social Democracies. Up to 50 kilograms of raw iron are extracted each day and are delivered to the kilns.

The Kilns

The Kilns is the zone where raw iron is smelted and refined. There are 3 main kilns, but also many other buildings where the iron is stored, and sleeping quarters, as if it were a small village. Two large, unused water mills lie near two of the kilns. When the dam was active, the water mills powered the huge bellows, but now they are operated by men and work beasts. The men who work the bellows were all recruited in cycles, as it is exhausting work, but in the last two years, a group of men and women has been working there continuously, creating a small community beside the Kilns.

The kilns are run by the local Guild of Blacksmiths, whose members actually do not forge anything anymore due to the high daily influx of materials from the mines. All the smiths of the Guild work daily to hammer out the slag from the hot iron bars, to create top-quality iron. Limestone is brought directly from Primia to improve the process of smelting and blooming.

Guildmaster Corvus, an affable Giant ex-smith, lives inside the city, but is always present at the Kilns to help the guild members in their work. He lost an arm when trying to fix, alone, the water mill, when he was not Guildmaster yet.

The Guild works closely with the Works of the mine. Being a foreigner himself, Guildmaster Corvus is trying to increase the standing of the Works for Iron Extraction. The Guild appraises the raw material, discards what is deemed unfit for the high standards of Primia, and gives to the Works a number of "tokens" that can be given to the Duchess’s treasury to receive payment. At the end of the day, on average, the Kilns produce 100 kilograms of high-quality iron bars for different uses and in different shapes. Each iron bar is branded with a seal representing the Duchess’ House.

Payment in tokens was requested by the Duchess to avoid Works selling raw iron "on the side." If a Work suddenly decreases the token conversion, then the Duchess starts an investigation on that Work, believing they are circumventing the "official" trade.

The majority of the iron is bought by local smiths. At the Plaza, blacksmiths employ errand boys and girls to buy the iron bars they need to craft tools, weapons, and armour. In each forge, they work the iron bars to achieve the kind of steel they need for their usage. However, in Dexia, there are also ambassadors and traders from outside Primia, who buy high quantities of iron to be then worked in the other Realms. Before the war with the Empire, Imperial traders were at home in Dexia; then, Primia banned the Empire from ever directly buying Primia’s steel, severely handicapping the Empire’s expansion. Now, the steel is mainly bought by realms in the Federated Social Democracies, and by Giant traders.