The outpost of the Mage Circle located within town boundaries of Antok was one of the weirder places to set up shop for mage handlers. Antok itself used to belong to the Ayyubid Sultanate, a nation of different faith as compared to the Empire of Moravias. Seized from the Sultanate when it was a mere village of stone created as an afterthought, the Emperor of Moravias personally supervised the construction of new buildings in this new domain. He wanted the architecture of Moravias to stand out against the 'barbarism' of foreign buildings.

This attitude showed. A quarter of the buildings in Antok were of Ayyubid nature. The buildings were generally short enough to consist of only a few storeys, and all of them were flat-roofed. Gray was not the first choice for someone looking for architectural beauty, but it fit the buildings well. Small trees, just a head taller than the average man, lined the sides of paths of the original town of Antok, providing shelter and aesthetic beauty. The Ayyubids may have been great conquerors of the East, but they had good taste in architecture.

Even though the Emperor (or at least, an emperor) personally supervised the construction of new buildings, perhaps the emperors involved should have gotten their eyesight checked. Every single building built was coated with a layer of white marble meant to emphasise the empire's wealth. That was the theory. In practice, no one looked directly at a Frankish building when the sunlight bounced off it. The first thing Antok did when the empire starting splitting up was not to do the same and declare independence. Instead, they painted their marble buildings grey.

But back to the outpost of the Mage Circle. It mixed both Moravish and Ayyubid architecture, literally. Half of it was built when the Ayyubids first came, and the other half was an expansion commissioned by the Mage Circle. Due to meddling from the men upon their thrones, the Mage Circle was forced to expand the building in 'Moravish' style, but adamantly kept the Ayyubid side intact. Most architects of the time were horrified at such an abomination, though the thing did end up withstand a couple of earthquakes. It was either masterful architecture, or magic that let the Mage Circle skip out on disaster insurance.

At least the grey worked better on Ser Ashton Cromwell's eyes. Ashton looked like the typical male soldier or perhaps mercenary. He wore a full suit of steel armour that protected everything but his head. The small shoulder-plates upon the soldier and the boots were coloured a scarlet red, almost matching the dull red irises inside Ashton's intense, no-nonsense gaze. Engravings marked the entirety of the mercenary's armour, though none of the engravings showed any loyalty to any dynasty or nation.

Ashton's head itself matched the feeling the armour gave. The mercenary's eyes stared intensely at just about everything that passed his gaze. There was no magic behind those red eyes, but the feeling of the man's glare had a tendency to strike a glancing blow even before conversations started. Ashton's brown hair was short and of almost even length at the front and back. None of the hair covered his eyes, which allowed his intense gaze even more power over social situations. 

It was also only on the man's face could one determine Ashton's skintone. Perhaps this mercenary was born with pink skin, though rough times under the sun had brought it to a light, slightly blemished bronze colour. Ashton's face was free of scars, though. Which either spoke poorly of Ashton's ineptitude, or his ability to avoid such disfiguring injuries. And even the age of 24, Ashton still carried a little youthfulness in his face. Some attributed it to some feminine quality in his facial structure, but Ashton himself would say that he aged well. 

A sword hung by the mercenary's side, unsheathed. The metal of the blade was different, but the make of the hilt and handle was still of the noble knight House of Cromwell. Few would recognise it, for Cromwell was virtually irrelevant even during the prime of Ser Ashton's life. The red handle and hilt, elegantly shaped to resemble the scales of a legendary red dragon, carried twin bell-guards on its handle, and the hilt itself was shaped like a simplified dragon's face, biting into the steel blade. Ser Ashton's sword had seen much action, though it didn't look the part. The single-edged blade itself was clean and free of any defects that hurt its fighting ability.

All that, was how a newcomer would describe Ser Ashton Cromwell. All of them would get one thing wrong, however. But who could blame them?

Who could believe that Ser Ashton Cromwell was actually a woman? She stood at 1.72 metres in height, and there was no aspect of femininity in her physical build. No bulge on the chest to make such a conclusion or curves to create a suspicion, even without her armour or clothing on. Even her face assisted the deception. Of course, she lacked the obvious physical trait a man had, but no one hunted for that on the first meeting. And no one got far enough in any meeting to begin hunting for that.

It was just as well. In this world, only women could be magically talented. Ashton had the same talents, but she never played the part. Why would anyone choose a life of in the cloisters of magehood, forever bound to live and die in the walls of the Mage Circle, when one could be free? Admittedly, she was never even in the Mage Circle, though she dealt with them a few times. In fact, she was not a mage until a year ago. Ashton never even expected to become a mage at all.

When she took her first step in the Mage Circle, Ashton took in a deep breath of the tavern air. the Mage Circle was technically not a tavern, though the first room played the part down to the letter. Apprentice mages often spent some time here, under the careful overwatch of senior mages and the Mage Circle personnel, working their magic through the bar and the tables. It was pretty much one of the few places in Moravias where one could order a drink and have it delivered by a levitating tray. Where the ice inside the drinks never melted. And where drunks could flirt with pretty ladies that had the ability to kill them with a thought and an utterance.

The mercenary skipped the tables, carefully gliding past a bar wench that carried her own trays, into the second room that defined the Mage Circle. A desk, with a young male receptionist sitting with his back against the wall, scanning through lines of ledgers that stacked up above the top of his seated height at one end of the table. From where Ashton stood, even considering her height, she barely could see a strand of the man's black hair from behind the great wall of books.

"Good morning," she uttered. The tone that came off her tongue would most likely be associated with men, though it would not break one's mind to associate it with women. The law of probabilities dictated the first, but the law of probabilities did not dictate how adventures and stories worked.

The receptionist looked up from his accounts. He gave a nervous smile, one Ashton associated with overworked bureaucrats. Or with henpecked officials dealing with mercenaries that glared like devils.

"H-How can I help you?"

"I'd like to purchase a sorceress as a retainer. Preferably a youthful one." She meant nothing untoward by her second statement, but the look upon the man's face told her everything she needed to know about what he thought about people that asked that sort of question. Ashton knew some people who treated their mages in the least dignifying of ways.

The man plucked out a quill pen and dipped its tip in ink. "Name, please, sir."

"Ser Ashton Cromwell."

Ashton was interrupted by the man's smile. "Ah yes. A knight. I think you'll be trustworthy, trustworthy enough."

The receptionist stood up and extended a hand to clasp Ashton's steel fingers and shook them gently.

"I'll get you one of our brightest young talents, Ser Ashton. Don't. You. Worry." The man went into the hallway to his right, his image disappearing into the corridors along with his footsteps.