In the darkness of his prison, Tristan drifted in a shadowy realm, his mind battered and senses shrouded in a profane miasma. Yet a fragile flicker of consciousness wavered at the periphery of his psyche, a gossamer radiance to which he clung with desperate tenacity.
At first, it manifested as a faint susurration - a dissonant murmur amid the agonized white noise harrowing his mind. Painfully familiar, yet Tristan dared not latch onto the torment of such futile longings. The harsh cadence of Zythrax's mocking laughter echoed through the shadowplains, each depraved syllable searing like acid into Tristan's tattered soul. How could any lingering vestige of hope possibly endure in the face of such profane malignancy?
And yet, the sibilant voice continued whispering at the tattered boundarie
