The Eternal Forge was not designed for diplomacy. It was a machine of industry, a vast, echoing cathedral of iron, glass, and crushing aetheric pressure. When Korthane Envoy Tarathel stepped onto the obsidian floor, the gravity of the room immediately forced his posture down a fraction of an inch.
Tarathel was a master of his craft. He had negotiated border disputes with Warlord Vaelthorn's frenzied clerics and mediated trade routes through Nethys's silent monks. He knew how to project calm in the face of power. But as he looked up at the crystalline grid hovering above the tactical table, and the motionless, iron-clad god standing at its center, Tarathel felt the moisture instantly evaporate from his throat.
The cold air in the massive Forge carried a sharp tang of copper and heavily ionized aether. It tasted exactly like an industrial empire that simply refused to sleep.
