Deep within the far northern mountains, where even birds refused to fly and sunlight rarely pierced the suffocating curtain of mist, lay the hidden headquarters of the Crimson Hunt. The mountain was ancient, its jagged teeth rising into the sky like a dead titan's spine. Every inch of it was cloaked in gray fog so thick it looked just like a blanket of cloud from afar, and beneath that oppressive cover rested a fortress carved directly into the rock. A labyrinth of tunnels, dimly lit halls, and rooms.
In one of those chambers, small, dark, and smelling of old metal and damp stone, Adrian Vale stirred awake.
He looked like a man carved from exhaustion. His eyes, once bright and sharp, had sunken into dark hollows. His blonde hair hung in tangled waves around his face, greasy and matted from many nights of restless sleep and too much drinking. His skin was pale, gaunt, stretched thin over cheekbones that looked sharper than before.
