The estate of House Berreth sat like a bloated brick just north of Esgard's inner wall—a crumbling monument to past wealth and forgotten pride.
Its dark banners still fluttered along the parapets, stitched with the fading crest of a mountain split by a golden pickaxe.
Once, they had been one of the wealthiest mining houses in the northern frontier. Blackstone. Manaite. Even raw soul core from the Reach.
But veins ran dry. And old names meant nothing in the brutal grounds of Esgard.
Inside the manor's central hall, panic rippled like a sickness.
"Seven million gone," Lord Halric Berreth growled, pacing behind a long table strewn with ledgers, writs, and stamped scrolls.
His fingers twitched, smudged with dried ink.
His hair—once jet black and slicked back with pride—had grayed around the temples. A ring of gold bit into his knuckles, the signet of his house. It trembled when his fist slammed the edge of the table.
"Seven gods-damned million. How?!"
