At the center of a vast, dark plain stood a towering obelisk. The ground stretched out impossibly smooth, as though it had been poured molten and left to cool in a single night, and fissures ran through the stone like veins of dried blood. From every cardinal direction, wide stairways climbed toward the spire, and each step burned with a torch of crimson fire.
Two devastatingly injured figures dragged themselves up the northern stair, one a man, the other a snake as long as a man stands tall. The man hauled himself forward on one good arm. The serpent left a dark, wet smear on every step it crossed. When they reached the foot of the obelisk, they bowed their heads low.
The torches guttered out all at once. A whirlpool of blood opened in the air before them, spreading wide into a portal, and through it the two passed into the Obelisk.
The moment they were inside, both dropped their heads to the ground. For the snake, the gesture came naturally. For the man, it did not.
