The Priyell Family's hospitality had at least managed to keep everyone alive.
Kraft picked out the recognizable parts of the food passing before him and filled his stomach with a few things that looked relatively safe. Then he neatly set down his utensils, pretending to be a Puritan who exercised great restraint when it came to fine dining.
The baron expressed his admiration for such freedom from worldly appetites and instructed his butler to summon the guide, so the well-rested party could set off for the Monastery.
Although he had not been there in many years, the current Baron Priyell still had no trouble pinpointing the building's location.
Standing atop the tower, they followed the direction he pointed. A corner of dark gray emerged and vanished amid the muddle of mountain vegetation and swirling mist.
It lay at the far end of the Basin, where a steep mountainside was covered from its middle down in broad expanses of bare rock. It looked like a wooden stake the Heavenly Father had casually hauled over, shaved a few times, and planted in the ground. Together with the other peaks, it formed a fence protecting the human lambs in the Basin.
The guide repeatedly reminded everyone to calm their horses beforehand, lest anything go wrong on the only passable road.
The people who had chosen the Monastery's site had to be credited with far better strategic vision than the local family. If this miserable place had enough food and a water source, it would be enough to make life hell for any attackers until the end of time, even without purpose-built fortifications.
No matter how many troops they had, they would be bottlenecked on the Mountain Path. At most, only a dozen or so could fight abreast, and in some places even fewer.