Ten miles beneath the volcanic crust of Mount Black-Star, the heat was suffocating.
Rivers of bubbling orange magma carved deep trenches through the black basalt floor. Clouds of yellow sulfur vapor hissed from jagged cracks in the stone, making the air burn like crushed chili peppers in the throat.
In the center of the colossal cavern, twenty-five thousand massive iron anvils rang in a chaotic, desperate din.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Dwarves with blistered hands swung heavy hammers, forging thick plates of dark star-iron. Beside the forges, thousands of spirit-elves with scorched green robes hauled heavy slag buckets and carved delicate cooling runes into the metal.
High above the workers on a raised stone terrace, Warden Xiong Ba lounged on a colossal frost-jade throne.
[Warden Xiong Ba | Imperial War Ministry Prison Warden | Rank 7 Early | Goodness: -56/100].
Xiong Ba was a massive, scarred brute clad in dragon-scale armor. He held a silver bowl filled with iced purple grapes, chewing lazily while spitting the seeds down onto the workers below.
