The road to Flamma Aeterna is not an easy one -- through the fells of Cumberland -- but finally you reach the top of the pass and, rounding a corner, see before you a deep valley. Hills surround you, the light drizzle that has persisted for days stops and the late afternoon sun illuminates the far side of the vale, and the sharp slopes of High Street. Far off in the distance to the North is the dark mass of a forest in a dip in the hills, and the twin lakes of Crummock Water, and nearer Buttermere shine silver. Between them is a causeway of stone: on the near side a small village, nestled into the foothills and copses by the lakes; on the far side a walled fortification, grey as the Cumberland stone, and as forbidding as its landscape.
The track down from the pass is stony but slowly passable, and it is evening as you arrive in the village. As you travel down you can see two figures crossing the causeway, one walking with a loping stride, the other jogging along to keep up. They meet you as you enter the village: a man and a woman. The man is tall and rangy, with shoulder length ginger hair, a thin beard, pale skin and darting eyes. His companion is shorter, and darker with a worried expression on her pale, drawn face. The man steps forward and addresses you in perfect Latin,
"Salvete, sodales. Welcome to Buttermere, and to the home of Flamma Aeterna. We have been expecting you. I am Conor son of Hugh, autocrat to the covenant. If you would follow me, I shall take you to the covenant proper, and you may meet the magi there."
Conor waits, and then leads you across the causeway, towards the covenant, looming ahead of you. From here, you can see the hard stone of the walls and the tall towers rising; the flags of the Order and of Flamma Aeterna -- a golden red phoenix on a black background - flutter in the breeze atop the gatehosuse. Beyond, the hills rise up steeply and the only break in the grey-green of the turf and bushes is a small waterfall dashing over the rocks like a wound in the land.
Across the causeway, Conor knocks on the wooden gates and they open to reveal a vast courtyard. As you enter, boys come to take your horses and servants come for your luggage, directed by the woman. Soldiers, armed with swords and dressed in Flamma Aeterna livery stand watching but do nothing. The covenant buildings seem separated into four: to the right of the gate is a three story building from which you can hear laughter and the smell of cooking; to the left, a similar three story building -- with a couple of guards lounging around the door -- which you assume to be housing for the turb -- and beyond the stabling; across the courtyard to the left a large three storey bulding, looking relatively new connected to a similar, yet older building which stretches to the right, between which two towers rise into the night.
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