While the Empire in the far north celebrated the reunion of kin, the Northern Realms—the lands of the southern humans—began to rot from within.
When the last of the non-humans vanished into the frozen mists of the buffer zone, the streets of Vizima, Novigrad, and Tretogor had been filled with drunken celebrations. The humans of those lands cheered, believing the "vermin" were finally gone. The Northern monarchs of Redania, Temeria, Kaedwen, Aedirn, Lyria and Rivia watched the initial drop in their tax bases with indifference, arrogantly believing that things would improve once "pure" human hands took over the labour.
The truth, however, was crueler than any king had imagined.
Without the dwarven smiths, the foundries and urban workshops went cold; the quality of steel plummeted, and the weapons of the knights began to brittle and break. Without the gnomes and their intricate tinkering, the looms and mills of the great cities ground to a halt. In the fields, the loss of the halfling and elven agriculturalists caused crop yields to dwindle, leading to a sudden, biting famine that gripped the countryside. The workforce had vanished, and the industrial heart of the Northern Realms stopped beating.
But the worst was yet to come. Plagues that had once been kept at bay by non-human herbalists and healers intensified, spreading through the mud-clogged streets like wildfire. With no one left who knew the proper cures or the subtle chemistry of the wild, the humans of those kingdoms died by the thousands. Only the Isles, the distant lands, and the Empire of Nilfgaard in the deep south remained stable, as their non-human populations had not left.
In Nilfgaard, the Emperor was happy. He had spent years planning to destabilize the Northern Realms and annex them through war, but now he saw that the north was becoming weak on its own. There was no need for further assassinations or secret plots; he decided to wait until the north fully collapsed from its own incompetence.
As the realization hit the Northern monarchs that their kingdoms were dying, a blind, suffocating panic began to take hold. They looked at their empty workshops, their rotting fields, and their plague-ridden hospitals, realizing too late that the "alien" they had expelled was the very lifeblood of their civilization.
******
In the shadowed taprooms of Novigrad and the damp barracks of Tretogor, the initial cheers for "human purity" had long since been strangled by the cold reality of a dying land. The humans of the Northern Realms—from the kings to the starving peasants—had no knowledge of where the non-humans had vanished. They only knew that the silence left behind was deafening.
About three months ago, when the foundries first went cold and the crops began to fail, the people believed their losses were the result of a curse or the gods abandoning them. Priests of the Eternal Fire shrieked that the heavens were punishing human sin. But as the downfall continued and the industries of the north collapsed completely, that religious belief began to weaken. Prayer did not fix a broken loom, and incense did not cure the plagues decimating the cities.
The grievance once directed toward divine abandonment was replaced by a much more terrifying realization: their downfall was the direct result of the elder races leaving. They looked to the maps and the reports from traders; the Empire of Nilfgaard in the south, the Skellige Isles, and the distant lands remained stable and fine because their non-human populations had not fled.
"Nilfgaard is thriving," a merchant noted grimly, looking at his empty storehouse. "The Isles are strong. They kept their smiths, their healers, and their tillers. We drove ours into the mists, and now the Northern Realms are slowly dying in the mud they once cleared for us."
A suffocating panic began to take hold. They had sought a world of only humans, but a world without the labor and craft of the elder races was a world that could not function. They watched their kingdoms crumble, wondering how the other lands remained so stable while they were left to rot in their own isolation.
******
The panic that had begun in the streets finally breached the heavy oak doors of the royal palaces. Across the five major nations of the Northern Realms, the air in the high courts was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and sour wine—the scents of a civilization whose infrastructure had rotted away.
In Redania, King Radovid V sat upon his throne in Tretogor, his youthful face twisted into a mask of cold fury. His advisors, usually so vocal about the "purity of the North," now stood in terrified silence. The reports from the industries were catastrophic: without the non-human craftsmen, the production of high-grade steel had ceased. His knights were forced to scavenge for rusted iron, and the tax coffers, once overflowing with elven and dwarven gold, were nearly empty. Radovid's belief in a "pure human kingdom" was being dismantled by the simple laws of economics.
Across the border in Temeria, King Foltest paced his war room in Wyzima. He looked at the maps where his military strength was once marked with pride. Now, those marks were being erased by the plague. "The Eternal Fire promised us a cleansing," Foltest growled to his marshals. "Well, the North is clean. Clean of workers, clean of smiths, and soon, clean of life. Our industries are collapsed, and my people are dying while the priests pray to a silent sun."
In the mountainous court of Kaedwen, King Henselt slammed his fist onto a table of heavy oak. He had always been the most vocal hater of the non-humans, but even he could not ignore the famine. "The fields are silent!" he roared. "The halflings left with their seeds, and now my people eat boiled leather. Is this our victory? To rule over a graveyard?" He looked toward the distant, empty peaks of Mahakam, realizing that the dwarves he had oppressed were the only ones who knew how to keep the mountain forges alive.
In Aedirn, King Demavend sat in a darkened hall, his eyes sunken from lack of sleep. His kingdom had always relied heavily on the trade and labor of the elder races. Now, his advisors whispered of the stability in the south and the isles. "Nilfgaard is laughing at us," Demavend whispered. "The Isles are fine. The distant lands are fine. Only we, who drove out the 'vermin,' are left to starve. Our downfall is our own making."
Finally, in the joint court of Lyria and Rivia, Queen Meve stood before her council. Unlike the others, her voice was not one of rage, but of grim clarity. "We believed our losses were a curse," she said, looking at the plague-stricken faces of her lords. "We blamed the gods and the ghosts. But the truth is simpler. We drove out the logic and the labor that built these walls. We are not cursed by the divine; we are abandoned by those we called alien."
The discussion in all five courts ended in the same suffocating silence. They were five nations of humans, alone in a world they no longer knew how to fix, watching their once-great industries crumble into the mud of their own pride.