As was customary among the many nobles of Swadia, they generally built their castles on relatively high rises in the plains. Their subjects then built houses around the castles, cleared broad stretches of farmland in the surrounding wilderness, and planted orchards across the hills, most commonly vineyards, complete with wineries.
With that, a human settlement was essentially complete, and it enjoyed reasonably good defenses as well.
A river made things even better. Swadian nobles had mastered the use of river water and knew how to dig irrigation channels for their crops, and even build harbors along the waterways to raise fish.
Before stabbing his brother to death, Firentis had risen only as far as cavalry captain as a young nobleman. His father had still been alive then and had not passed the family title on to him, but that had not prevented Firentis from receiving the relevant education in his youth.
That knowledge had allowed him, now no longer young, to develop a fairly prosperous stretch of land north of the Running River. He had named it Lurens after his hometown. Although Firentis had served in the city, his family's fief had been in the surrounding countryside.
On a morning when cold winds howled but the sunlight was still reasonably bright, Allen, Hollimion, and two young secret agents arrived at the village below the castle. Smelling the acrid smoke rising from the smithy and treading country roads that remained muddy beneath their frozen surfaces, they prepared to meet the other Twilight Knights and stay with Firentis for a while, since their business here still needed some time to develop.
Across this wilderness north of the Running River, there were almost no mountains, only a few low hills. Even half of those had been extensively quarried, and the stone extracted had