The sky lost its color.
The earth trembled.
All life in the Palin world felt a fear stemming from instinct.
Moss wilted on the rock walls, fungal hyphae curled into clumps, the Man-eating Flowers clamped their mouths shut, teeth clattering within petals, while deep in the wasteland, the War Ancient Trees peeled off their bark to cover the trembling elves.
Corpse-eating Beetles in the crevices burst into collective hysteria, like sprites of a choir, piously folding their forelegs and antennae, scraping their sharp mouthparts; the elderly Giant Dragon hidden in the mountains turned over laboriously in its massive heap of treasures, curled its claws, exposing its wrinkled belly.
The shaman from the indigenous tribe crawled under a towering totem pole, watching in horror as stinking liquid seeped from the stone pillar's base. Meanwhile, the wizards descending from outside raised the Alliance's "The Code," loudly reciting its clauses.
Atop the Observatory Tower.
