They sat cross-legged on the floor in their hundreds, and if not for the gentle movement of their chests, I would have believed they were statues.
I paused, then carefully counted them again to make sure that I had the right number, and indeed, they were that many, 330 men and women, arrayed in a concentric ring around the statues.
They all wore grey and silver robes, with the six-pointed star of Vothar worked into every breast. Their faces were masked with a smooth white mask, and their hands laced in patterns I had no name for.
Votharii magic was different from Aelmar's elemental disciplines, but I could feel the potent charge of magic in the air, without even pushing my senses deeper into the hall.
It was then that I noticed that in front of each golden statue squatted a construct, it was a dark machine, with floating rings within rings, and inward-pointing arms that were aimed at the orb in the statue's hands.
