Blackvein took a breath, and nodded at his fellow practitioners. He began pacing around the room, his eyes foxed on nothing in particular.<span style="color: #008040">"I wasn't planning on siezing any of your retinues. This is an alliance, not a vassalage or any such arrangement. As such, each of you will of course command your own forces - though certain events might warrant a joining of forces - in which case you might agree on a general - or, if you can't decide - flip a coin."</span>After making a full circut around the table, he stopped at his own seat and looked to Clais.<span style="color: #008040">"Clais, you said you had something in mind for the alliance?"</span><br/><br/><div><hr style="height:2px; width:100%; border:0; color: white;background:white;"/></div><br/><span style="color: #BFBF00">"Indeed. A small thing, silly really, but the mortals of this world pay a ridiculous amount of attention to appearances - especially where order is concerned. Since this plan does depend on a certain amount of mortal interference, I was thinking this alliance might need a semblance of something recognizable. I think this will be slightly easier to accomplish if we had some things mortals would recognize."</span>Clais got an odd look from Blackvein, who hadn't meddled in Clai's little project - a matter of mutual respect for the privacy of the other.<span style="color: #BFBF00">"What we'll need is, I think, a banner of sorts. And a name to go with it."</span>Clais then opened a small chest he had placed in the room prior to the meeting, and pulled out a piece of cloth, lying it on the table. It was a green-tinged dark-grey war banner, trimmed with a bone pattern in silver, and a silver icon of a burning skull flanked by the symbols of the five essentials of alchemy - knowledge, reagent, catalyst, power, and the created product. Text was also embroidered as eyebrows on the skull: "Exprobraret nobis mortem qualecumque semper". The rough translation, as those around the table would probably know, was "We defy death, in all its forms, at every turn". Clais looked at the party.<span style="color: #BFBF00">"Although we do not like it, the preservance of life is the task at hand. As such, we defy death. I thought it was apt, for us... Knights Reluctant."</span>Clais looked at Blackvein with a little hint of a smile. Blackvein, in turn, shook his head with a sarcastic laugh.<span style="color: #008040">"Well, it'll certainly get the local lords' attention. We might even be taken seriously."</span>Clais turned to the rest.<span style="color: #BFBF00">"It's not much. But it's something, and it may give us a certain boom from the start."</span>He stood up straighter.<span style="color: #BFBF00">"What do you think?"</span>