Within the Duskmire Vault's inner sanctum, a faint pulse echoed through the floor, once, twice—like the heartbeat of some ancient, slumbering leviathan.
Then the air itself parted with silent reverence, and then a graceful, tall figure of the Dread Duchess Varathia stepped forth!
She appeared from the shadows themselves—her form crystallizing out of the very abyssal mist, as if the darkness had merely chosen to reveal what had always been there.
She was tall and impossibly poised, draped in layered robes of black-gold abyssal silk that shimmered like living night. Her skin was pale as soulbone, faintly laced with obsidian runic markings that pulsed with dark spirit Qi.
From her temples curved a regal pair of slender black horns, polished to a mirror sheen; they framed a face of cold, imperious beauty, with sharp lines that suggested both a ruthless intellect and unshakable authority.
