In the heart of the world's waters, where three great oceans would meet if not frozen by supernatural cold, rises an island wrapped in perpetual winter. Here, crystalline spires pierce the gray sky like frozen prayers, and the ground sparkles with ice that never melts. Ancient dragon statues dot the landscape in perfect geometric patterns, their stone forms radiating a silence so profound it seems to hold the very air in reverence. This is the sacred neutral ground where the most powerful rulers of all realms come to speak as equals, their earthly authority stripped away by the endless cold that challenges all who dare approach.
The island's heart pulses with a massive hall of blue-white ice, its walls carved with the stories of ages past, buttressed by silver dragon bone that gleams in the eternal twilight. Within this sanctuary lies the The Convergence Chamber, where obsidian meets ice in a perfect circle, and the eyes of ten thousand dragon statues watch over those who would shape the fate of worlds.
In The Convergence Chamber, a towering figure moved with fluid grace across the polished obsidian floor. The Eternal Maid swept in long, methodical strokes, her movements as rhythmic as the tides that once kissed these shores before the great winter claimed them. Nine feet of pristine white marble veined with silver and blue crystal, she moved like carved poetry given life. Her crystalline hair flowed like captured starlight, each strand a living thread of ice and gem that caught what little light filtered through the chamber's heights. Where her mouth should have been lay only smooth stone, unmarred and perfect, while her eyes shifted through shades of sapphire as she contemplated the endless cycle of preparation and waiting that defined her existence.
Her robes of arctic blue shimmered with embedded ice crystals, creating patterns that danced like aurora across the fabric as she worked. The only warmth in this frozen realm came from the dragon bone brooch at her shoulder, its carved surface holding a crystal that pulsed with soft, steady light.
A shadow fell across the great obsidian doors, and they slid open with the sound of distant thunder. From the doorway, a serpentine silhouette emerged, scales catching the chamber's dim light.
"Fair-currents, Eternal Maid," came a voice like water over stones, speaking in the fluid tones of the maritime realm.
The towering figure straightened, her full nine-foot height commanding the space as her crystalline hair caught the light. "And fair-currents to you, daughter of the depths," she replied, her telepathic voice carrying the weight of ages. The soft susurrus of scales against ice echoed through the chamber as her visitor moved closer.
"I bring unfortunate tidings from the deep," the shadow-wreathed figure continued, her serpentine form barely visible in the chamber's twilight.
The Eternal Maid nodded slowly, her eyes shifting from sapphire blue to silver-white as she fell into deep contemplation. Her thoughts turned inward, racing through memories that spanned millennia, processing information with the patience of stone and the wisdom of eternity.
I have witnessed much, she reflected, her consciousness flowing backward through time like a river returning to its source. Once, I was merely a fragment—a simple gemstone resting in the cosmic debris after the great Shattering, when the Unseen God's call awakened Ietherion itself and reshaped reality into four realms. I watched the first tribes emerge from the ashes of the old world, struggling to survive while dragons soared overhead, magnificent and terrible in their power.
Her thoughts crystallized into bitter understanding. Fate, it seems, has quite the taste for dark humor—blessing the fortunate with power they cannot wield wisely, while cursing the unfortunate with wisdom they lack the power to implement.