The Hitlaro Bank
The bank in Tés Aváir, where a dwarf turns your key and the door to your vault changes with the age of your family line.
The Hitlaro Bank stands at the end of a side street in Tés Aváir, so easy to walk past that you almost have to look for it. It is a low grey stone building, and the gate is made of black oak, so low that Ahra has to duck.
Above the gate an inscription is carved into the stone, worn soft by wind and rain: “Cave. Nunquam solus es.”
Ahra says it is old Anglîsh and stands over all of the bank’s doors. Chris has never learned Latin, but he understands it all the same: take care, you are never alone.
Inside
There are no counters and no queue. The room is low and warm, with a bench along one wall and a black iron stove crackling in the corner. At a low table by the stove sits a dwarf, waiting as if he has all the time he needs.
You hand over your key. The dwarf lays it in his open hand, says where the silver in it was mined, and leads you down a corridor of identical grey doors without handles. When he puts the key in, the door changes its appearance.
Retia’s door turns new and bright, with silver hinges. Ahra’s becomes solid mahogany with rusty hinges and has to be helped open, and Ahra says apologetically that his family is very old. It is also here that the three of them get the first coins they will spend in town. See currency.
Spoiler (revealed in chapter 5)
Chris' door is ancient, black and cracked, and the dwarf says it has been sleeping. Inside lies a small pile of coins, the top ones bright as if someone had put them there recently, a shield bearing the symbol from his letter, books bound in black leather and a bundle of sealed papers. He takes only a few coins and doesn't look at the papers.
Chapters to read
See The Hitlaro Bank on the map