Warm golden light spilled from crystal chandeliers and lamps along the wall to fill an opulent ballroom with enough light that the elegantly dressed guests had to remind themselves that they were deep underground.
A long banquet table occupied a raised platform at one end of the hall, serving as a gathering spot for some of the most powerful people east of the great desert. Torbin, the Eldritch High Lord of the Vale of Mists, stood at the center of the banquet table, smiling with pride as he gazed upon his many guests.
Torbin's once black fur had long turned a shocking shade of white and his eyes had taken on a distinctly red hue as he aged, yet those were the only signs that any time had passed for the three hundred-year-old vampire who had united the Horned Clan and the Clan of the Great Claw in the Vale of Mists.
