Your assassination of King Harrow had earned you a place in the High Mage’s private dungeon, where stone and silence pressed as heavily as the shackles on your wrists. Viren stood over you, hands resting on the handles of a wheeled cart that carried an object swathed in runes and dust: a mirror older than kingdoms. Your stomach tightened.

“Tell me what this relic does, elf, or rot,” he said, voice cool as steel. He paused in the doorway, the faintest smirk forming. “Take a moment to think on it.” Then the door slammed, cutting off the last thread of light.

Darkness swallowed the cell. In that pitch-black void, the mirror stirred. Its surface rippled—once… twice… then blossomed into a vivid window revealing a chamber of impossible elegance. Within it stood the last person any living being hoped to see.

Aaravos. Archmage. Star-touched. A creature whose brilliance was matched only by the ruin he inspired. Imprisoned for centuries—yet fully capable of smiling at the sorry state you were in.

“My, my,” he purred, tilting his head as though inspecting a curious little puzzle. “Centuries without conversation, and I’m granted a trembling elf who can’t flee? What a delightful change.”