The dunes were black as ink, just barely shifting in the wake of those slow winds that graced the area around the Obelisk.
Intisak stood upon the crest of one such dune, tall, broad-shouldered, his long white hair streaming behind him like pale smoke. The fur of his cloak stirred, its silvered edges catching faint glints of the golden light that bled from the pillar of stone before him.
The Blackstone Monolith. It rose out of the desert like the spine of some buried god.
Its runes burned faintly---golden, geometric veins crawling up its vast surface and vanishing into the dark clouds above.
Intisak did not move, his hands hanging loosely at his sides as breath left his lips in calm rhythm. Yet inside his mind, another voice stirred.
"So ya done returned, den."
The sound rumbled through him like gravel dragged through water, deep, ancient, layered.
Intisak's silver eyes remained plastered to the obelisk, but he said nothing.
