(~2,000 Years Ago)
The original central market of Nod burned for three days. The cause is disputed. The Chroniclers' records list arson by disgruntled members of the Merchants Guild, an alchemical accident in a storage warehouse, and spontaneous combustion caused by improperly stored materials from the Cacophony. All three may be partially true.
The fire consumed the market, two adjacent residential districts, and an unknown number of residents who could not evacuate in time. The rebuilding began before the embers cooled. New structures were raised on the ashes of the old, and the replacement market was named Ashmarket as a reminder. The fire also destroyed the previous system of property records for the central districts, which means that many of the current land claims in Ashmarket and the surrounding areas rest on custom and occupation rather than documented title. This produces property disputes that the Prefex are still adjudicating a millennium later.
The Ashmarket Fire is the earliest documented instance of what the Chroniclers call a "cascade failure," where a single event exposed the absence of coordinated emergency response in a city governed by anarchy. The Lamplighters trace their origin to the fire's aftermath, when the Council recognized that maintaining the city's infrastructure could not be left entirely to private initiative.