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[centre][h3][u][b]The Small Mountain City Of 'Norsteir'[/b][/u][/h3][/centre]
[centre][img]https://s5.postimg.org/6fuw0os3r/8cd622c008d97bf2a091f1afdc7bff90.png[/img][/centre]

[color=gray][i][b]“Another? Oh dear me, I do believe that makes..-”[/b][/i][/color][color=#44C12D] Spoke the words of a caretaker tasked with the duty of taking responsibility, to numbering something the survivors that had recently been flooding Norsteir's gates. As he spoke his tone seemed to decline into dismay at the notion of approximating the exact number to his count. The decimation of the neighboring capital city of [i]Ashala[/i] had been beyond anything that the subservient lineage's of Norsteir had been ready to expect. The fury of the enemies of Kalassa had been undoubtedly growing within it's dismal persistence. For the pillage and destruction of monumental cities or empires had been only a thing of old terrible myths and unsettling legends.

[color=gray][i][b]“Why are we helping the Ashalion's anyway? What good have they done for us detached fractions, that have always chose not to bend to their cavalier of politics?”[/b][/i][/color] For whispers spoken of many in the smaller sub-city of Norsteir had been slipping astir, since the first days flames of cataclysm plagued what partial blue of sky had been left over the once rich territories of Ashala's prosperity that once lingered above the grand city of Ashala. To the Nosteirion's, the threat of what this might mean grew upon worrisome imagination, if only the layout of high terrain and precarious forestry, had not been within the place of the smaller faction of man's natural field of defense. The city built into the forestry of the old mountain laid detached from the shattered capital of Ashala. Smaller in nature and even less defended, but ultimately graced by natural defences, that the once proud city of stone walls and vast civilization was not within benefit to share.

[color=gray][i][b]“You forget. We stand on the foot of the elderly earthen mountain. Many have tried to decimate our lands before, armies even. Ashala's own pride and thrive for dominion was the inevitability of it's own demise. We smaller few are better then to let the avarice of expansion, or rule, get the better of us. If shade touched do come, they will succumb to the fury of the forest alike the many before them..” [/b][/i][/color] More speech, spoken from another that denounced the worry of impending threat, that might turn it's attention on the near sub-city of Norsteir. For conversation of worries and and concern had seemed to plague the often decent nature of Norsteir's once more subtle matters of dispute. Among the various bantering of village folk and specialized guards that went about their usual routines, to generate subtle soul to the town, the clicking steps of one unlike them, grew professed. Such steps had belonged to a woman, one dressed by almost an enigmatic essence of wardrobe that many knew often belonged to practitioners of arts beyond the simple understanding of most humans, dwelling in the complications of arcane quality. A hood shielded her features from the others that might peer upon them, but it wasn't like the unity of Norsteir was much in favor of strange figures or individuals. Everyone from here knew this woman by the distinction of her robes of red and black alone, their tailoring common among the mysterious [i]'Sisters Of Nine'[/i] - which had served to be Norsteir's greatest weapon against the fiends of it's opposition. Some called this woman a sorceresses, or so the tongues of the less wise might decree upon seeing her conjure the utmost arcane phenomenon. Others a witch, who might only disregard the meddle of her twisted practices at all, and some simply as someone of clerical gifts given by some older cynically conjured god, by the necessity to bring heavens miracles from fiction and into very true reality. Regardless as to what titles might grace her, that woman knew better then to flourish in inscriptions branded to her by the feeble few who would indefinitely agree that she were simply someone, of enchanted palpablity.   

With those steps she took stride forward as if to the reach where ever it was that the cobble stone path beneath her meant to direct. The slip of whatever opinions she might bare on the decimation of Ashala's more recent fall, held by tight lips of crimson tacit. Ignoring such banter, she moved further down the path, and to the old monastery that had been Norsteir's most notary pinnacle of architecture. For the monastery of Norsteir was a versatile architectural structure that did much more then simply erect it's momentum as an icon of the town's more convoluted faiths of old. This monastery was the core of the Sisters Of Nine's operations, as well as the symbol of Norsteir's ever lasting hope and hallowed perseverance.

Arrival guided the shift of her steps from the front doors of entry and around the old structure that stood before her. Through the gentle gardens of twisted tangle-some moss trees and willow woods, she'd take the shift of her venture until she arrived at another door, only just revealed among the brush of nature that augmented around it, almost infusing itself with the old side building. The heave of wooden doors of tough fortification were tugged apart and into the depth of the small bleak room she'd step, to only travel down the spiral of shadowy stairs, only lit by the illumination of several small candles that remained mounted on the walls to greet the path of its visitor.

Down the steps she'd travel until she'd come to a small alcove of hallway decorated by old banners of red and black, baring symbols that only few had come to truly understand the allegiance that remained behind them. Beyond these banners and small torches of light there laid yet another door, in likeness to the one that led to the depth of this place, but partially smaller in nature. Opening it brought the tap of boot heels to a sharp end. Within the room behind this door remained a small almost cubicle of a room, a desk in the corner, a chair at it's side, several book cases littered with tomes that looked far beyond the age of the average archive of library, and finally a cote by a window – baring the slumbering occupation of a certain wounded yet unconscious knight.

At first the woman that stood before the slumbering knight did nothing else but idle above him, the light forward grace of her steps only closing the distance before him as the bleak lit interior of the room played with the gentle arrays of candle light the painted reflect to the interior stone walls within. At the edge of the bed she stood, the concealment of her face behind hood almost domineering over him, in observant, endless silence. Another moment slipped away and she'd force the veil of her hood down, revealing the woman that lay beneath. Gold of hair, eyes of precious blue, though tipped by a sense vigor with the way they contrasted against the dim candle light of the room. Skin of peachy colour partially pale, graced by the delicate beautiful and still ample youth that hid beneath the developed sense of maturity she wore behind the manifest of that effeminate face. Such was not the expectation of many who had come to be stranger to this woman, often considering something less innocent to be hiding behind that curtain of thaumaturgy she wore. And oh how they were most certainly right with that guess.

[centre][img]https://s5.postimg.org/ms4xqf6fb/3cd0139c84cebf62e71360ae7918404f_1_rs.png[/img]
[i]The young woman beneath the hood..[/i][/centre]

Shifting in place by her heels she'd gently rest herself on the edge of the bed, as the inquisition of her eyes swept over the peace of her companions slumber, leaving him to instead find a small bucket of water by the touch of her feet. Reaching for the bucket had her draw it nearer by reach of her hands, as her opposite hand reached into for the cloth inside, before the slip of curious fingers poked against the surface of the warm natural spring water that gave content to the bucket. Next she'd pull the cloth within from it's float and carefully drench it over the bucket, being careful not to wet the bed. Once the cloth was run thin of excessive water by the practice of light rinse, she'd gentle bring it over to the forehead of her silent protege, before ever so smoothly gracing it across the chill of his abnormally brisk forehead.. Watching through ever loyal silence as she only wondered when he might wake, if ever at all.[/color]