"In the 1213 year of the Human Era, a period of history known as the Marauding Decades were the Nordligs from Argent-Berg and its locality started to plunder, pillaging and marauding across the coast of Edor going as far to arrive at Marinya and successfully sieging and sacking the mercantile city. King of Catalina in a desperate attempt to stop the Nordlings offered the great Sealord of a major tribe, Yorgenson the One-Eye, the city of Eliza at the southern tip of Edor tucked in the Turquoise Bay was offered as a tribute to Yorgenson under one condition, keeping all the rest of the Nordlings away from Catalina. Yorgenson agreed to the offer and as a man of honour, he kept the pillagers from the shores of Catalina, later when more immigrants from the north came to join the great Sealord, Yorgenson renamed Eliza to Yorg-Berg meaning The port of Yorg. Of course, if the King did something to irritate the Sealord he would conveniently let a pillaging party of his allies to be able to slip past his fleet and plunder the king's fiefs. 

Now don't be fooled by the Nordlings brash nature and eagerness to shed blood, they are shrewd as a fox in their craft but instead of politics or trade their craft is mercenary contracts and waging war.

After a century after the pact was made Yorg-Berg gained the title of the principality and the Nordlings adopted a few of the customs of their subjects but even after so long they still cling to their archaic traditions."

-Extract from History of Niuran by Professor Potr of Grand Academy of Oriripol

  Iris was led to the main hall of the temporary headquarters of Theocracy. After passing through the threshold of the bulky doors, she instantly noticed a figure that robbed attention just with its posture. The tall figure was Utrecht leaning on a pillar that was holding up the ceiling. Utrecht sensed her and Valentine's approach and pushed himself off the pillar straightening his towering posture, which earned one of his many nicknames "The Behemot". Utrecht looked down at the pair and nodded when Valentine stopped, bowed and returned back, after ensuring that Iris arrived at her destination. Utrecht motioned to the elf using his enormous hand the size of her head, to be followed silently disappearing in the half twilight further inside the half finished building. Iris knew a few things about him, she knew that he was not a fan of talking and was more about action rather than words, he also was the "friendliest" of the four of her masters but that was not a high bar to reach compered to the treatment she usually was given. He treated her neutrally and rarely interacted with her, maybe it was his personality or his culture which was not advanced in magical arts and rarely allowed thoughts from the weak south to influence them but regardless of what it was the elf appreciated his odd behavior.

  Utrecht squeezed his body into the spiral staircase making his way toward the first floor. The living mountain was sure to stay far away from the balcony overlooking waiting for its railing to be installed as they passed doorless rooms before they arrived in front of a room with a locked door at the end of the corridor. Her nordling master turned the brass knob and bend his body to fit through the door.

"In the shelves, there is your equipment and here is your work to do." His thunderous voice bummed throughout the silent room, he was pointing his finger at the back of the room where a small bed and a crudely made shelves were located before he threw a iron key onto the bed in a corner.

  Iris bowed to Utrecht, a habit she picked on in her long years of captivity and went over to inspect the shelves. She found a stack of paper pages bonded by string and a set of leather garments she often saw scouts and squires wear. Iris flipped through the pages first and found them filled with what at a glance was a Cyclopean script and more bizarrely, translations underneath each paragraph with the additional blank pages. She guessed that Brad or Alicia wanted her to check if Oriripol mages were not hiding any valuable information from Theocracy. She turned her head to see Utrecht had disappeared without her realizing when. She picked up the iron key and locked the door before laying the paper on the table.

  When she was about to finish transcribing her translations of the script finding no major deviancy from her own, she heard knocking sounds on her door quickly followed by the door knob frantically moving but before she could answer Brad stormed into the room accompanied by the jingling of key chain.

"What are you doing?" Brad erupted clearly already annoyed and in a hurry.

"I was translating as Master Utrecht instructed me to do." Iris tried to use Utrecht as a shield to maybe prevent a beating if Utrecht made a mistake and assigned her the wrong job.

"Did you finish?" Brad said and after receiving a small nod from Iris he took the notes with him and went back leaving the doors open.

  The elf awkwardly stood still uncertain of what to do, her assigment having been taken away. She figured she could relax a bit and began to massage her sore shoulder before laying down on her bed, the poor quality bedding felt like pure bliss at that very moment.

"You stupid fucking bitch, I told you to come with me did in I?!" Brad suddenly appeared in front of her and roared.

"N-no You..." Iris's words escape her lips before caching herself but Brad heard her reply.

"You dare to object to ME! I am the fucking Hero you slave bitch, I will fucking teach you a lesson" Brad shouted taking a bundle of her black hair into his hand and yanking, throwing her on the ground and kicking her in the ribs couple of times.

"You better be downstairs in 5 minutes or you will see how merciful I was," Brad said with a much quieter voice but with a dangerous edge to it.

  Iris's eyes wept out of the pain of receiving a kicking from level 188 human but she had to stand up and do as Brad told her knowing that Brad was holding back, if he had kicked with his full power her chest would have been only a crimson smear on the floor for someone to clean. She did not want to die so with great pain clutched the spot that Brad had kicked with one hand trying to grab on to the bed frame with the other. Diziness overtook her senses as she tried to stand up but somehow managed to walk out of the room while hugging the wall. She must have took more then 5 minutes to get down stairs as no one was there but Dian who her that the crusade is advancing forward and that they are leaving.

 Iris was riding on a wagon still feeling the pain pulsating from her rib cage. They were advancing on an ancient, decrepit road from ages gone by. She was at the rear of the column along with the backline fighters and people needed for the journey but not useful in combat.

  Hours pass by with little to do between an odd runner asking to interpret a Cyclopean tablet or a passage, in that lull in any activity she observed her surroundings. The terrain was  very mountainous with scarce vegetation and thick mist which fortunately slowly dispersed the higher they climbed. The crusading forces have stopped when they reached what appeared to be a ridge line where the a cliff forced them to go the long way. The forces of each individual country set up their separate camps. The camps Iris pondered somehow manage to reflect all-be-it on a small scale, each state's unique culture. The Oriripol forces set up camp using magic and making enlisted soldiers do all the dirty work while the two ruling classes rested, the Yorg-Berg tents were set up in circles with a roaring fireplace in the center allowing banter and partying to take place, and forces from Firmusa lonly, isolated kingdom far up north first set up a basic wall going around their side of the camp, just in case before they set up their tents. Such a pattern showed itself to a lesser degree on the rest of the forces but was still visible if one looked close enough.

   On the third day of their journey when they were about to repeat the task of setting up their tents, scouts reported an enormous lake surrounded by mountains with visible ruins on one of the flat areas that they often encountered during their escapade. Some 6 kilometres away, just below the horizon.

The very next day the human forces marched with enthusiasm and vigour towards the ruins that were scouted yesterday, many hoping of becoming rich from the treasures they would find. After about three hours of marching, the expedition members could bask in a tranquil and majestic sight layed bare in front of them. A great lake of azure blue stretched towards the west inside what could only be describe as a gash on Niuran itself. The lake's water reflected rays of sunlight creating a beautiful and breathtaking sight. While most people stopped and admired the view, few of the more observant people noticed that right in front of them, on the other side of the lake a ruined city existed hidden under the shadow of the great mountain. The crusade commanders order the column to stop, regroup and create a plan of action. Iris was brought closer to the front of the column where she would stay until they arrival in the city. While they resumed their unrelenting march forward, Iris could get a glance at the action at the front that happened occasionally. Of what Iris could put together from chatting footmen and some shouting further up the column in the front, the undead grew in their numbers but never approaching the sheer size of the [Mist Revenants] that they encountered beside their outpost but the overall level of the undead mostly comprised of [Skeletons] [Wraiths] and [Withers] slowly increase from about level 25 to levels of 36 to sometimes levels as high as 48. Iris watched as the number of people gathering copses both fresh and old to the side of the road to be cremated increased.  

  Once the crusaders entered the ruined city and cleared most of it from the undead, Iris was once again escorted to be brought forward and while she was escorted to her destination she scanned the derelict buildings. Even as a ruin and no longer in any state of maintenance the solitary and bare wall still radiated the magnificence of their age. The door frames themselves were six to seven meters high and the elaborate engravings on the still-standing frame were visible if one looked very closely. Iris arrived at what looked like a plaza that was in a need of maintenance with weeds growing knee-high in between the cracked stones of the pavement. On the plaza were multiple humans that were directing their eyes onto a wonder. Iris looked upon a structure that even in its current state demanded respect. Chiselled into the mountainside was a great doorway with a grandiose roof held by life like statues. On each side of the massive doorway was a set of walls with depictions of stories and myths still clearly visible on the ancient structures. The columns holding the triangular roof were made into the likeness of a human-like appearance with one central eye on their face supporting the roof with their extended hands while at the bottom of the columns were depictions of multiple figures of many races bowing their head so far that the forehead touched the ground. Iris walked slowly past a gathering of humans which in turn seeing such an act followed towards the standing wonder of architecture and art. Iris went past the venerable statues and upon climbing the set of wide stairs she gazed at the grand door. On the edges of the door, the entire host of one eye beings was prostrating themselves toward a figure in the center, a figure with the left half composed of bones and the right half still possessing flesh, both of the figure's eyes were replaced by jewels ghostly blue on the left and golden yellow on the right with a jewel of dark purple embedded in its sternum radiating a soft glow. Behind the figure was a comet with two long tails trailing behind.