The heavy iron-bound gates of the Blood Moon Fortress did not open with a grinding, mechanical screech, nor did they shatter under an explosive assault. As the four of them stepped onto the vast expanse of the white marble plaza, the two six-story slabs of dark, vein-laced blood-stone simply dissolved—melting away like ink in water, leaving a cavernous, yawning archway that led directly into the heart of the central keep.
The wind on the High Plateau died down instantly the moment they crossed the threshold, replaced by an unsettling, absolute silence.
The Great Hall was vast enough to accommodate an entire army battalion, yet it contained no guards, no constructs, and no hidden cultists in the high vaulted archways. Towering pillars carved from solid obsidian stretched up into the shadowy heights, supporting a ceiling that appeared to be made of churning, liquid space—a swirling cosmos of dark crimson and violet nebula clouds through which faint, distant stars flickered.
