Across the bridge lay the city of Whiterift, its brilliant white banners shining beside the red flags of Octania. A few houses had been constructed beyond the outer wall, and their residents seemed a carefree folk, their children laughing and playing in the river as it babbled in the joyous yet indecipherable language of such meandering waterways.

Near the western edge of the city a quaint wooden mill, still active as farmers came to process their early harvests, was overshadowed by a massive stone bridge bearing six waterwheels that spanned the Angelos. Blacksmiths filed out of a large building built upon the mill bridge, cheerfully returning to their homes and anxiously awaiting their midday meals. Most stopped to wash the soot of the furnaces from their arms and faces in the river.

The road wound up to a wide gate watched by four sentries clothed in the full livery of the Marquis of Whiterift who were idly lounging about, smoking and eating and laughing. Their helmets and cloaks lay forgotten as they strove in a futile quest to stave off the summer heat. The grey stones of the thirty foot high wall seemed to blend with the bright green grass of the hillock naturally, as if the wall were a rocky cleft instead of one of man's many constructions.

On top of the wall men at arms on patrol duty were perched upon battlements, basking under the clear blue sky. Within the city could be seen the towering inner wall groaning under the weight of bastions and guardhouses in it's tireless duty to protect the inner city. While taller than the highest redwood, this wall was nonetheless dwarfed by the ancient castle of Whiterift. Streaming red banners adorned the top of eight round towers joined by walls a dozen yards thick. Within this fortress was the heart of Octania itself, the great Hall of Kings where Lord Garek Trunam VIII kept watch upon his realm.

A lone horseman wearing a luxurious red doublet paid the toll-man and rode leisurely across the bridge and into the city. It was Sun's Day, market day, and the city's market squares were overflowing with peasants, merchants and thieves grappling together in a great battle of commerce. Even the courtyard of the great Angelos Temple of Gaia had been opened to market. The rider rode through the outer city, stopping only to idly purchase a pouch of tobacco from a man in the Third Square. He arrived at a great stone building roofed with plates of lead and surround by men of steel. A doorwarden greeted him.