It is as quiet a night as they come in this fallen world, or it is at least so here, under the aegis of a Saint. The ragged followers of the woman they know only as Woe are largely engaged in quiet work around the low light and warmth of lunar orbs, soft murmurs exchanged between them as they toil. The broken furniture that dotted this half-fallen manor house has been used to bar the doors and windows, the gaps between them plugged with solid bone, and there may be no fortification safer than this outside of the strongholds of Riteoir.

Let the storm rage, the sky roil. The youngest of their band still may sit on heaped cushions and listen, enraptured, to the story she is being told by their third oldest as he brushes out her hair and weaves it into a sturdy braid.

The oldest of them stands apart, as she almost always does, preoccupied with thoughts they know better than to trouble her for. She watches the weaving of hair through half-lowered eyelashes, working her lower lip between her teeth, before she addresses their second oldest, perfectly poised at her side.

"You're certain you checked the wards as I instructed?" The Saint of Woe asks Our Lady of Blades, with a querulous note of fretful exhaustion. "To my exact specifications?"