P58 - From the Cold to the Arena

Location: Gelu Hallow - Guild Hall:

The wind beat against the windows of the old Cryo-Fang Guild Hall, a silent giant now barely used save for meetings of Gelu's frost-hardened outcasts. Inside, the lights flickered with magic-siphoned lanterns as Iria, Toren, Seline, Damon, and Vax stood before the warped, battle-scarred desk of their former guild master:

Vorneis Frostjaw.

His beard was lined with frost, his shoulders wide as glaciers. Once known as the "Steel-Blizzard" in the 767th Arena Games, he had vanished after their collapse--only to return quietly, and bitter.

"You want direction?" Vorneis said, his breath misting in the air. "Then take this instead."

He placed five aged, golden envelopes on the table, each marked with the sigil of Eagle City's Arena Games.

Arena Invitations.

Vax blinked. "You serious?"

Vorneis nodded. "You five were always blades that couldn't find their sheath. So go. Sharpen yourselves against the best in the world. Show them Gelu isn't just cold--it's cruel."

No fanfare. No grand speech. Just pure acceptance of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And that was enough.

Elsewhere...

Far beneath the world, beyond the Riftlands, in a domain carved from bone and molten rot, a daemon knelt before a great eye pulsating with green energy.

Zavren, standing above his throne of obsidian limbs, listened through one of his soul-leeched scouts perched outside Gelu.

"So... Iria and her little rebels crawl to the Games." He chuckled softly, voice echoing like screams in a barrel. "Let's make sure they're welcomed."

Behind him, in a containment circle of shattered godsteel, a creature sat hunched--its form like a twisted colossus with a skinless frame and hollow white eyes, its mouth constantly chittering in an unintelligible tongue.

Clawed feet, human skulls embedded in its back, and two immense blackened swords on its shoulders, etched in old magic-slaying runes.

Zavren turned toward it.
"Rise, O' devourer of men... Rise, Nexivoros, Bane of the Solar Epoch.
Feed once more in the blood of the worthy."

Nexivoros opened its maw.
And laughed.