Alexandra, Siegfried, and Ekkehardt stepped into a small cottage on Sir Isidor Schmidt’s estate. It was an incredibly small cob structure with a thatched roof. It was just barely big enough for two people to live in, but still better than the dungeon they had escaped from.

Inside, the scribe Adi Schumacher was waiting for them. He sat on a chair behind a square wooden dining table.

“Hello, your highness. I trust that ‘Hans’ informed you of my presence?” Schumacher asked. Alexandra nodded her head and then began to take a seat.

“Yes. He said that you wanted to talk to us; that you had some information about Nordfell,”

“That is correct,” He replied as Ekkehardt and Siegfried also took a seat at the table. Alexandra then saw a subtle look of concern appear on Schumacher’s face as he glanced at Siegfried.

“...Uh… Siegfried, are you doing alright?” He asked.

“I’m fine, sir.” the young man responded. Alexandra could tell that Schumacher wasn’t completely convinced.

“Okay. Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, there isn’t much I can do to help in terms of providing you with material or muscle. However, there are two things I can help you with. First, I managed to steal a couple of maps from the archives for you. Technically speaking, they had been lent out to a library in Peschtia by a recently deceased scribe. Knowing how we run things, it should be awhile before they realize that the maps are missing.” Schumacher explained as he produced a few rolled-up maps from a satchel and handed them to Alexandra. Alexandera and Ekkehardt took a moment to unroll one of the maps and examine it. Ekkehardt nodded in approval.

“The second thing I have for you is a history lesson. I went into our archives and read everything I could find on Nordfell. Now, what do you know about Nordfell?” Schumacher asked.

“Not much. Only that it’s the ‘rectum of the empire’,” Ekkehardt answered.

“All I know is that it was used for the resettlement of criminals and… uh… dissidents at some point in time,” Alexandra said.

“I see,” Schumacher responded, “Well, I guess I should start at the beginning. Are either of you familiar with the Bergman Horde?” Alexandra nodded her head.

“Yes. They were nomadic horsemen from the east; the Endless Eastern Steppe to be specific. Hundreds of years ago they invaded Yerb. They destroyed armies, razed cities, and then, for seemingly no reason at all, they just left,” Alexandra answered.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you that, even generations after they left, many of Yerb’s royal families were still afraid of them. One of your ancestors decided that he needed a sort of bulwark in the east of his territories; some way to keep the Bergmen at bay in case they ever returned. He sent explorers and surveyors to investigate the eastern mountains that stood between the steppe and his domain. They noticed that, for the Bergmen, there was only one easy way to pass through the mountains: a strange, relatively flat region right in the middle of the mountain range that was connected to both the kingdom and the eastern steppe through a pair of narrow passes. Since it would be cheaper to fight Bergmen in that place than in the kingdom, he should have it settled,” Schumacher explained.

“And I’m guessing that this was the place that would eventually become Nordfell?” Ekkehardt asked.

“Yes. But there was still a big problem: settling the land. Sure it was safe from any threat, save for the Bergmen, but it was cold and the soil was of poor quality. Very few people wanted to live there. The royal house eventually found a simple solution: round up every beggar, debitor, prostitute, and petty criminal they could find and send them to Nordfell. Naturally, most of them died either en route or within a year of their arrival. For a while Nordfell was little more than a collection of small outposts populated by Alemanian, Bratiprahian, and Peschtian riff-raff, but everything changed when the Osminite Empire attacked. As I’m sure you know, their army was routed and they ended up being kicked out of Remina, eastern Peschtia, and the northern parts of Suidmania,” Schumacher explained.

“Yes. That’s how my dynasty came to control those lands. My ancestors filled the void that the Osminites left in their wake. Many people over there weren’t exactly happy to trade one foreign ruler for another, but that is what ended up happening.” Alexandra replied.

“Well, your highness, I don’t know if ‘weren’t exactly happy’ is the best way of putting it,” Schumacher replied, “There were a number of rebellions that popped up in the territories that had just entered Ostermania’s sphere of influence. We managed to defeat each and every one of them. Their leaders were killed and many of the participants were rounded up and resettled in Nordfell. These deportees would fare a little better on their journey to Nordfell than the criminals and impoverished people who preceded them, but many of them would still die. During the first few years there were some people who tried to escape back to their homeland, but the Ostermanian army controlled the western mountain pass that led back into Yerb. They were still free to leave through the eastern mountain pass, but all that led to was the steppe. Few, if any, tried to do that. After a generation or two people stopped trying to escape. A few years later, the people of the empire found out that the Bergman horde collapsed due to infighting, and all that remained of it were hundreds of small tribes and petty kingdoms that were too busy killing each other to concern themselves with the continent. Once the ruler of Ostermania (who I believe was an emperor at this point instead of just a grand duke) found out about this, Nordfell ceased to be a militarily strategic region and more or less became just another county; one that just so happens to be full of the descendants of rebels and criminals,” Schumacher explained.

“‘A county full of the descendants of rebels and criminals…’” Ekkehardt quietly repeated. Schumacher nodded.

“That is correct, even if you were to include the noble family running it. Actually, it would be especially correct if you were to include the noble family running it. Have any of you heard of the name ‘von Brandt’?” Schumacher asked. Ekkehardt, Alexandra, and Siegfried all shook their head.

“I can’t say I have,” Alexandra responded.

“Oh. Well, would the name, ‘von Giftbaum’ ring a bell?” Schumacher asked. Siegfried and Ekkehardt both still looked confused, but Alexandra appeared to remember something.

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“Actually… yes. I believe I have heard that name before. I think that the von Giftbaums were an Alemanian noble family that mistreated their peasants and rebelled against my dynasty. Is that correct?” Alexandra answered.

“Well, that is more or less correct, but also a gross understatement,” Schumacher answered, “The von Giftbaum family were the progenitors of the von Brandt family. They were known to have a history of cruelty that stretches back to the time when the Alemanian people were pagans that lived in mud huts. As far back as anyone could remember they were nothing more than a pack of hateful and malicious little shits; not just the men, but the women too! I read an anecdote from one source that said that if noble families had a child that was misbehaving, they would scare them straight by saying: ‘Straighten up, or we’ll marry you to a von Giftbaum!’”.

“Anyways, in the years before the first Osminite war, the family had a modest amount of power and wealth; a castle and a couple of counties in Peschtia. These two counties were, at that time, terrible places for the peasants. They were nearly taxed into starvation, the constabulary was nothing more than a gang of (sometimes literal) thugs that were given the right to victimize the populace as they saw fit, servants in the castle were frequently beaten within a hair’s breadth of death for little to no reason, and every now and then peasants (mostly girls and young women, but sometimes boys as well) would just disappear only to turn up dead in a cesspit a few months later,” Schumacher explained.

“So, that’s why they were tasked with overseeing Nordfell; to punish them for these crimes?” Siegfried asked. Schumacher shook his head.

“No. I don’t wish to… insult present company, but the von Adlers of the time were… willing to turn a blind eye to these acts of indiscretion as long as the von Giftbaums remained loyal to them,” Schumacher explained.

“Schumacher, I appreciate the sensitivity, but after knowing Agrippina for all these years, I’m willing to accept the premise that some members of my family might not be saints,” Alexandra chimed in. A little smirk briefly appeared on Schumacher and Ekkehardt’s faces.

“Alright, to put it bluntly, the von Adlers of the time didn’t care about anything that the von Giftbaums did as long as they remained loyal and didn’t cause any trouble for the other members of the nobility. This all changed during the first Osminite war. In the early part of the war the Osminites won a series of impressive victories. All of this was preceded by over a century of the Osminites winning other wars with other countries and expanding their territory. The head of the von Giftbaums, being the treacherous little snake that he was, didn’t even bother mobilizing his soldiers when the war began. He thought a decisive Osminite victory was a forgone conclusion, so he simply waited for the Osminte army to march into his land and declared his allegiance to them; offering them support in the war effort in exchange for being made a governor of what he thought was going to be a new Osminite province. According to one source I read, he literally prostrated himself before the Osminite sultan and renounced his loyalty to both the von Adlers and the Kroppian faith before offering a large portion of the peasants living in his lands to the invaders as slaves,” Schumacher explained.

“To the surprise of many observers, the sultan was so disgusted by the count’s spinelessness and moral bankruptcy that he had the man stripped naked, publicly flogged, and imprisoned in his own dungeon alongside his entire family. The castle was then looted by the Osminites. They took all of the grain and gold they could carry and left a small force of third-rate soldiers behind to garrison the castle,” Schumacher continued.

“Did your sources say why the sultan did that?” Alexandra asked. Schumacher shook his head.

“Well, some sympathetic to the Samudaayian faith describe what the sultan did as the righteous actions of a liberator who was only trying to do what was right for the people in the lands he conquered. However, those within the church as well as those sources that were loyal to the empire describe the sultan’s actions as purely pragmatic. They say that he was a cunning leader that wanted to win over the people he just conquered while also getting rid of someone who clearly could not be trusted. I personally don’t know. Both narratives could be true. You could argue that this was a situation where the right thing to do was also the most convenient choice,” Schumacher answered before taking a moment to catch his breath.

“Anyways,” Schumacher continued, “The Osminite army continued marching through western Peschtia and into Ostermania, where the sultan did another thing that took everyone by surprise.”

“And what was that?” Ekkehardt asked.

“He died,” Schumacher responded, “The sources from the church refer to this event as an act of divine intervention, but we should probably keep in mind that this guy was at least eighty years old at this point. The sultan’s sudden death and the political instability that came with it caused a wave of panic to spread through the Osminite army. They attempted to make a retreat back to eastern Peschtia, but the empire was able to use these events to its advantage and turned what was going to be an orderly retreat into a massacre. We were able to not only retake the land that we lost, but also annex the Osminite controlled part of Peschtia as well as the entirety of Remina.”

“Okay, but what about the von Giftbaums?” Ekkehardt asked.

“Well, when the army marched through Peschtia, one of the things they did was retake Giftbaum castle, where the count was imprisoned. The Osminite garrison, being severely outnumbered, inexperienced, cut off from their allies, and low on food, surrendered to the Ostermanians and allowed them to retake the castle without a fight. While in captivity, the Osminite garrison told their captors of the von Giftbaums’ attempted betrayal. Their stories were corroborated by the local peasantry, many of whom had been forced into manacles and other such restraints before the sultan’s arrival in preparation for them to be offered as slaves. The grand duke of Ostermania decided to leave the von Giftbaums imprisoned in their own dungeon and continue the war. Three years later, when the war had concluded, the von Giftbaums were brought before the now-emperor and told that they would be stripped of all of their titles and holdings. They were then given a choice: either accept rule over the newly-created county of Nordfell or die. The patriarch of their family went with the first of the two options and frankly, I can’t say if he made the right choice.”

“What do you mean by that?” Alexandra asked.

“Ever since their patriarch accepted the title of count of Nordfell and took up residence in Brandt castle, the family suffered from misfortune upon misfortune. The initial shock of going from a rather wealthy noble family in control of two counties to becoming poorer than some of the wealthier barons within the empire was bad enough, but that was only the beginning. The von Giftbaums, now the von Brandts, became pariahs within the Ostermanian nobility. Nobody wanted to touch them, whether that be in terms of military support, financial support, or (most importantly) marriage. Very few members of the nobility ended up marrying into that family and the few who did only did so, because they had nowhere else to go. This greatly thinned their numbers. It also didn’t help that, after moving to Nordfell, the family appeared to develop a propensity to either give birth to children with deformities or die young. I heard that the most recent generation of the family is a good example of this. The patriarch is a childless cri… uh… invalid who murdered his siblings long ago to gain control of the county,” Schumacher explained.

“What an unpleasant man…” Alexandra remarked. She felt sick in the stomach just from the thought of being in the same room as that man.

“And that’s about everything that I’ve learned about Nordfell,” Schumacher concluded.

“Thank you, Adi,” Alexandra said.

“You’re welcome, your highness. Now, I’m afraid that I must get back to the city. I don’t think anyone is looking at me with much scrutiny, but my excuse for being here is already flimsy enough as it is,”

“That’s not an issue,” Ekkehardt replied, “You’ve already gone above and beyond for us.” Schumacher’s lips curled into a small smile.

“Thank you. Now, unless you have any messages you need me to convey to Rasmussen or any of the others, I’ll be off.” Schumacher said. The three of them shook their heads. Ekkehardt opened the door for Schumacher and the three of them watched the lone scribe walk down the dirt trail to the end of Sir Isidor Schmidt’s estate until his figure disappeared into the horizon.