[Malik, Salyan Kingdom.]
What they saw inside made their blood turn cold.
The corridor was long, narrow, and unnaturally quiet.
The corridor opened into a vast chamber the moment they stepped inside.
The air grew thicker, heavy with a strange warmth and the faint scent of iron.
Akamir led the group forward, and what they saw made them all stop in their tracks.
Hundreds of elves stood throughout the temple hall.
But they were no longer themselves.
Their skin had turned into a twisted mix of bright red and sickly yellow.
White veins glowed beneath the surface, like tiny stars trapped in their flesh.
Their limbs were stretched and malformed, some twitching uncontrollably, others fused into the floor or the walls.
Their skin moved like parasites were crawling all over their bodies.
Most of them simply stood there, heads bowed or rocking slightly.
Mutated, broken with no hope in their eyes, but somehow still breathing.
