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The first two estates are rubble now, or ruins, but a small enclave sticks like a standard out of the soil near something so blisteringly aberrant as a citrus groove. The bright yellow orbs guide Sacerdotessa and her retinue onwards. A scraggley collection of soothy souls follow in their wake.
One of the Coaldousers shoulder open the rusty old gates. Abandoned, then? Hm, no. Simply little used. The manor isn't large, but it is neat and clinical. Two small buildings and a warehouse full of alchemical implements.
Out of all the things to randomly stumble into, it seems we've found ourselves in a Cesteriphon agronomist research enclave. The farmer-scientists, being people pretty good with measuring the likely shape of the weather to come, have long since sealed up, locked down and bailed elsewhere. Being conscientous sorts hoping to return to work once things quiet down, they've left most of their tools and the pantry is well stocked with long-storage rations.
Some of the Coaldousers seal the gates back up and gruntingly pull a few of the dusty carts over to it too. Not an imposing fortification, this. But against horsemen, what needs to be?
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They arrive shortly afterwards and simply keep coming. They pelt the walls with javelins. Fling a few arrows. And then, fired up and searching for larger, grander things, they whallop and hoot and ride on south, south-east. Across the broken ground and gently wafting grass? Well, the river, nice and cool, but also a green flare gently descending to the ground.
And a slight line of Legio in front of a bridge where seven Luperni Strikers are trying to pile a few barrels and raise a single gate-post.
