The Great Hall of the Obsidian Peak did not merely succumb to the forest; it was
devoured by it. Within minutes of the Fifteenth King's arrival, the stone
pillars—meticulously carved by the Lithic Vanguard to represent the architecture
of our new peace—were strangled by a network of black, iron-hard vines that
pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly green light. The sapphire crystals in the
ceiling, once the beacons of our Hallowed light, were pulled from their sockets
by roots that moved with the speed of striking vipers, replaced by heavy,
bioluminescent moss that smelled of damp fur and ancient, rotting mulch.
The "Real" world had been stripped of its civility. The air in the hall was no
longer cool and dry; it was a humid, suffocating soup of predator musk and the
sweet, cloying scent of carnivorous blooms. The sound of the wind was gone,
replaced by the wet, rhythmic slap of broad leaves against the stone and the
