The Reflection

Prompt: A charity dedicated to helping those in need

The Reflection is a charitable organization who help all in need no matter the race or circumstance.

When the high elves of Vrofmas were defeated on the Era Peaks and banished back to their homeland, those empowered to enforce the decree on Lokrea gave no mind to the impact this would have. Within days, elves in critical roles in their community were ripped from their positions and homes without any help finding a replacement, and put on a boat if not secretly killed outright.

Most communities were obviously torn raw from these actions, but life moves on and people do what they must to survive. Other leaders rose up with varying levels of success or failure. Some small communities that had been primarly populated by high elves pretty much dissapeared from the map, with the few that remained just picking up their lives and moving elsewhere.

Along the eastern coast though the impact was even worse and in the city of Iraebor, devastating. Tens of thousands lives within the city proper, with equal amounts living in small settlements nearby, relying on the city for all but the simplest of needs. In Iraebor, plenty of people called the valley their home that were not of elven descent, but leadership was still primarily in the hand of the elves. Elvenkind had founded the city and their prolonged lives meant that only a few generations had gone since the people that brought the city from the ground up and there were even some still present that were alive during the founding of the spire-filled city.

When the final boat left the shores of Iraebor, the remaining populace were a shadow without structure. Many of them being other races that were not banish, they were still not favored by many and so received no support. Well, almost none.

A single, human quartermaster, who's head had been down in the books during most of the campaign to expel the elves, looked up on their way out of town. His name was Liam Tamery and although he took no issue with the elves being forced away (they were the aggressors, after all) He looked over the side of his wagon to see locals looking back at him with loss and fear and hate.

That night Liam made the discovery of the lack of help they were going to lend these remaining people. That final night before they were to depart back to the Era Peaks, he took a stroll and sat with a group of survivors around a campfire. There he heard stories not of control and power, but of ancient trust and beauty and songs and helping hands. The leaderships, obviously exluding a few bad apples that assisted with the invasion, mostly had no connection to the events the last few decades or even opposed it. But they had been taken away nonetheless and Iraebor was going to turn into a ruin within weeks, with it's remaining people left to survive and devolve.

He returned to the camp and made some edits to their supplies, just tightened up the provisions that were accounted for on the way back home. He ordered them moved away from the camp with clever half truths, told the survivors where to look once they were gone, and that was that. He left with the rest of his brigade the next morning.

Upon returning, Liam Tamery was unable to stay focused on his work. His mind kept returning to the people in and around Iraebor. Using the authority given to him to make calls on provisions, he felt it was right for more supplies to be sent, and so he did. And did again, and again, and again. in greater quantities each time as Liam researched and better understood just how many people had likely been left in the city without any hope of finding a better life elsewhere.

Eventually Liam was compelled to leave his speadsheets and aquisition orders behind for a couple of weeks and made another trip to Iraebor, see how his provisions have helped. The situation was much worse than he had imagined. Folks had attempted to fill the roles left vacant but not quickly enough for the city to have been maintained as it should. Most importantly, the necessary songs of the elves that put so much magical enforcement was completely absent.

Others had decided that they liked the thought of big city living and so moved into Iraebor and kicked out all those that were of the "lower" races. For the most part, Humans and halfings and dwarves and other major races joined their locals in being driven away, feeling more connected to their neighbors even if they were bugbears and goblins and orcs, or seapeople or half turtles.

So, when Liam returned, he found bandits living in the city, and locals hiding out in the many waterfalls in and around Iraebor. Liam immediately helped them get supplies and made some remote orders for more provisions as well as other supplies needed to maintain a community.

Try as he might, the greater majority enjoyed this new availability of Iraebor and more and more people moved in who were intollerant of the old citezens. It only took a year for Liams best attempts at keeping the provisions coming to fail, as he was eventually spotted and word got back to the Era Peaks. He was not only fired, but he was being actively hunted as an elven supporter.

As the years went on, his community, though unable to reclaim Iraebor proper, survived happily in the waterfalls, though it was a tense life. They had to move often and fought often with those that wanted to clear them out.

One day as drunken sailors invaded their simple cave, axes swinging, one of the little boys screamed in anger " how can you look at your reflection in the waterfall and know that you do this!!"

The comment picked up steam, and often those that came to clear them out would be met with strong words of looking at themselves in the reflection of the waterfall before the entered, that they might see just who's doing these terrible things. They began to be referred to as The Reflection.

Time continued on and evenutally the elves were invited back. By this time Liam had used his skills as a quartermaster to expand assistant to the rest of the valley and then to the swamp to the south and the desert to the east. He connected with a sympathizer in Kethel and soon had a network spanning all of Lokrea.

When the Elves were invited back it still took time for The Reflection to be unburdened of it's notoriety, defamation, and need for secrecy. It was critical in rebuilding Iraebor though and though behind the scenes, instrumental in organizing the grand treaty of the third age alongside the dragonborn negotiators.

Today you can find secs of the Reflection in many cities, usually supported by the local government in their many efforts. They still receive plenty of pushback though. In Tressuin for example, they must remain as hidden as the days of their founding, as they work against the active slave trade. They also continue to be looked upon unfavorably by the gnome communities in the Era Peaks, who have not given up the view that The Reflection aided the elves in those early days.

At present, one may seek The Reflection for food, housing, safe passage from danger, and more.