The Elevator Collaborator

If you ever ride an elevator, and the chains, rope or coils stop and start to make a grinding sound. Jump and pray.

Historical Basis

A hunderd years ago, in the twigwrist-tribe, the village was all hidden in the tree canopies, protecting them from dangerous beasts, Orochen warbands along with people of hostile intentions. Limiting their threats to beasts of air, which however proved little danger to experienced mysticans and rangers. There was however one more threat that came to grow within the jungles of Kan'darshi
At night a feathery shadow had taken it's apperance outside the windows of the village. And sounds of grinding was heard, like a large beak scraping against metal. Nobody took notice though, as birds pecking is a natural sound of the wild, and rather soothed the inhabitants.
The very next morning, Human Rangers where troubled of what they saw. The trees littered with bodies from unexpecting wood-elf citizens. All dead from a, for now, unique occurance. Their lifts and elevators had all been tampered with, causing the hinges to fall out as the inhabitants sought to travel down for their every-day tasks. This left many questions for the Zarawakanian troops as they investigated the scene.
The corpses mainly belonged to middle aged males, hunters and gatherers, but a few elder ones along with females could also be found on the ground. Something that meant inhabitants of the village now where trapped up above.
The Zarawakanian troops sent their best scouts and war-hounds to bring a message to Barrkad, along with a note from the Ranger General, requesting the wise Baron to send gryphons along with archtects and supplies to repair, reinforce and uppgrade the elevators for a safe rescue of the children, elders and women stuck in the treetops. The message reached within three days of notice and the gryphon squad was sent, soaring through the air.
Once they reached the Zarawakanian troops they swiftly discussed tactics and started up the rescue operations.
Two days of struggle and further investigation went past, before the elevators were fixed and the remaining population safely reached the grounds. The Barrkadi architects had soon figured out the cause of accident, and proclaimed it saboutage, as someone had loosened the hinges to cause a mass grave. For what reason they couldn't tell, so the Zarawakanian General had every single inhabitant of the village thorougly interrogated.
It was to no avail, as the only answers they got were scared children blaming the birds, something which made no sense.
A couple reports about the situation was made by the Zarawakanian General and one of the Twigwrist elders, one in elven, sent to the wood-elves capital Rùtelm. The other in Human language, sent to the Baron.
They prepared for their last night in the jungle before return home when the scouts came back late at night with a new report from the wood-elves. The Zarawakanian General took the scroll and read it with interest.
Twenty-three other elevator accidents, Some in broad daylight where citizens had heard first a scream, and then a crash, to find a corpse and elevator soon afterwards. A few others matched their own case perfectly with the nightly saboutage. One case even said a strange black figure had loomed over an elevator as one of the Wood-elves passed by. The elevator had afterwards dropped down and crushed them underneath. Many of these too, had heard the sound of a beak, scraping iron. And in almost every case, a body was missing from the crime-scene a day later.
The Zarawakanian General threw the scroll in anger. Shouting out that the elves had to be more concrete than bird-beaks and scraping against iron. There was no way a small little animal could create such harm, yet move away a corpse. It rather occured to him that someone was dressing up in a feathery coat and with an ivory chissle saboutaged elevators for, God's know why. He was impatient and had been away from his king for far too long. So the humans left the jungle and case for the wood-elves.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks to month's as the General had all but forgotten that day in the jungle. He went on with his ordinary life as he stepped into the wooden and iron lift to take him down the massive Zarawakanian spike-wall that protected the city. Fifty meters up, it decended to thirty when he suddenly heard a flap of wings. Not of a small bird, but something the size of a humanoid, and slightly bigger.
It landed hard onto the metal inches and caused a grinding sound, forcing the elevator to come a sudden stop. With a black beak and raven-like feathers, the creature a mix of bird and man looked down onto the panicked General, who screamed for help.
"Prr-rrey no speak" it said with intelligence in it's voice, as the creature snapped the ropes of the elevator and had it fall crashing to the ground.
A few hours later, the guards found nothing but bloodstains on the crashed elevator. Confused as to what happened.
Many more murders in similar cases happened in the span of a couple years. Involving all from more elven lifts to Dwarven mine elevators. The perpetrator was however never caught.