at least… that’s what They call themselves

Most are folk with no power to speak of—just the memory of what the city used to be before every cobblestone became a cut of profit.

Trollslända was born not of fury, but of force. When Erik Mordiger rose as the Black Maw after Leopold’s murder, he traded the chaos of anarchy for the precision of business. Raptoraem was reassembled into a well-oiled machine—each Strut a gear, each worker a tooth. Mordiger called it the first step to self-sovereignty. What it became was efficiency through exploitation: the black markets transformed into syndicates, Umbra sold as both cure and curse, vice legalized in all but name.

Solarium had ruled by doctrine. The Black Maw ruled by debt.

In the years that followed, communities that once shared bread began selling one another for credit. Gambling dens became cathedrals. The streets were scarred by gang wars and haunted by addicts.

Ezra saw the pattern early.

His mother died during the Ash Plague; his father was shot at the Vesper Gate for trespassing into Solarium territory. Ezra learned that doctrine and profit were just different uniforms for the same executioner.

Trollslända began as local maintenance crews keeping their blocks alive when the Strutlords’ gangs cut power during turf disputes. Then they started targeting supply lines—sabotaging Umbra shipments, ambushing Vertex Consortium convoys, and hacking freight records.

What the Black Maw called treason, the Sländers called balance. They flaunt no banners, no ranks. Only an emblem: a dragonfly painted in pale luminescent green. In Raptoraem’s folklore, the dragonfly is motion—restless, precise, impossible to pin down.

Its wings refract light into shards—half shadow, half phantom.

All freedom.

Among Raptoraem’s youth, Ezra is an icon of defiance. His people call him the Lantern Man—not for his speeches, but for his results. He redistributes stolen supply runs to the slums, reroutes power from the Strait of Gold down to the Stone’s local markets, funds underground sanctums and soup kitchens. Under his leadership, Sländer raids aren’t just vandalism; they’re proof that Raptoraem’s freedom from Solarium didn’t end its servitude.

It only changed its master.

Ezra isn’t a zealot; he’s a tactician. And to those who remember what hope felt like, he’s a reminder that it isn’t extinct. Among the young and the unemployed, the dragonfly has become shorthand for dissent—chalked on walls, stitched into jackets, tagged beneath freight cars heading into the Pit.

Raptoraem’s newly formed First Council, desperate to maintain order after independence, has branded Trollslända a terrorist cell. Blackguard patrols hunt them block by block, sweeping through the Pit with scanners and informants. So far, none have found the Sländers’ network.

Some say it’s luck. Others whisper that someone close to the Black Maw leaks patrol routes before every raid. No one dares to name who.

Ezra doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t confirm it either.

But wherever the Sländers go, the dragonflies are sure to follow—chalked on walls, flickering on old terminals, burning bright before they vanish.