"It's a fair question, and understandable, given that you are familiar with the nobility." The baroness leaned forward a little, towards the fireplace, and stared into the flames for a moment. "You could say I was just looking for a place to settle down and the kings of Lancrest have always been willing to give retired adventurers a chance to civilize the frontier. It's not a new story, really. The same tale has played out two dozen times, over the last century or two. In essence I just petitioned the king for some land, showed him I had the means to make something of such a grant, and his majesty graciously granted my request after I swore fealty to him."<br/><br/>She leaned back again and her lips twitched into something approaching a smirk. Of course it had all been a bit more tedious than that, a bit more complicated, but the essence of it was true enough. A few palms had been greased, weeks spent working her way through the kingdom's bureaucracy, facing challenges of a kind no adventuring life could prepare one for. But that was the past, and the baroness didn't think back to it much.<br/><br/>"Now, I guess your question also concerns the 'why' of the 'here'?" She looked at Mialla, but only briefly, before her eyes traveled again to some point in the distance. "It could, after all, have been a stately manor in Savoy, a villa in Leon, or perhaps some temple in the north. You could say it just suited me. I always enjoyed life in the forest more than the trappings of large cities, and back in Finwar I would have been just one priestess among many. Here in the south I can do the Lady Sif's work just as well, and offer a place of worship for the few followers of the Asgardians that find their way into Lancrest."