Taking advantage of the elves’ weakening, vampires seize leading positions in the city’s governance and quietly implant an idea in the population: the City of the Morning Dawn was harmed by living machines, and therefore it must replenish its resources through a conquest war with other states—ones the machines didn’t manage to reach. Only a legendary elven artifact can stop the vampires from launching their predatory war and restore elves to power: the Rune Emerald, which, according to some estimates, is located in a city that once sank underground—beneath the Old City of magicians. The main fighters of Warm Hollow assemble for a march.