Penvella sat in one of the gentler bends of the River Vel, where the water slowed and widened before gathering itself again for the long run south. The river was always present here; always audible, always just below the window.
It was a bell town, and had been long before the Evergild arrived. When they came, they came gradually, settling on the higher ground above the old streets, and for a time the town was the better for it. The nine silver bells cast here – from metal the Vel itself gave up – had a resonance that was immortalised in a song still sung across Penvellyn: The Bells of Penvella.
Over years and wet winters, the Vel found a new course to the east, and the low-lying heart of the town was lost to its waters, a slow undoing that came to be known as the Silting. The founders dispersed along the river; generations on, the bells their descendants make are still called Penvella bells.
A few fae households remain on the high ground above the old streets — quiet, well-provisioned, enjoying a tranquility that the river, in reshaping everything below them, accidentally perfected.
For a full account of Penvella’s history and the Silting, a document exists in the Library.