"Sit and eat," she waved a hand over the food invitingly, encouraging those who were still holding back.  

She eyed the newcomer, Zarwin, acknowledging his presence with a nod when he bowed.  He must have been found and brought here by Oldrik, her trusted right-hand man.  A solid addition to the party now assembled in the room.  

She gave the prisoners time to sate their hunger and quench their thirst, sipping at her own goblet as she studied them again now that the grime and stench from the prisons had been mostly cleaned away. But once they seemed to be mostly satisfied and some quiet conversation began to replace chewing, she sat up straighter in her chair.

"Each of you has accepted the offer of a forgiven sentence in exchange for your service to me," she reminded them, taking time to look directly at each person, looking for indications that any might be having doubts about their decision.      

"Whitehall has stood sealed now for over a century, its knowledge thought lost forever.  But there is a way to open it and we are going to do so." 



[hider=History of Whitehall]
(OOC:  For anyone who might have missed it in the OOC conversation:

[i]Magic has always been rather rare and considered dangerous.  But there was a prestigious order of mages who studied magic and tried to utilize it wisely.  It was about a century and a half ago when things went wrong.  A mage named Gerrell dove too recklessly into magic and it corrupted him, driving him to seek ever more, no matter the consequences.  When the others grew concerned, he fled the order and was forgotten about for years.  During that time, he was slowly building an army, corrupting the minds of the trolls until they came to serve him.  Gerrell himself continued his foray into more and more powerful magics, driven ever more insane and lustful for power.

After a decade had passed, his troll army began their conquest, bolstered by his magic, and more organized than ever before, they swept up a large portion of territory before the other areas and races could get their act together.  The order of the magi was overrun, killing all except a few that managed to escape.

War followed.  Gerrell was only defeated by the combined efforts of the armies from various city states and those few mages who had escaped him previously.  They performed a ritual to finally defeat him and seal up the fortress that housed the mage's order "forever".

By almost unanimous decision, magic was outlawed.  
[/i]

[/hider]