In the north, within Blackstone City, The Astral Clock chimed across the inner plaza. With every toll, arcane runes flared to life—cascading from the stone statues to the central keep, along the watchtowers, and across every inch of the battlements. The massive defensive ward breathed like a living beast, a sea of shimmering glyphs. It was merely Lorelia, performing her routine surveillance of the city.
"I am so bored," she groaned to the empty air. "The prophet gets to go to Stoneheart City. Dirtclaw gets stationed at The Bastion Wall. But the great Lorelia? Trapped here, rotting away in time and misery." She struck a dramatic pose atop a jagged boulder. "Oh, my magnificent master! Show yourself and comfort your most beautiful, kind, loyal, and fanatical queen! I would bleed for you, I would march through hellfire for—Who's there?!"
