The Audience Chamber

The humanesque figure moved down the dingy hall, the snow-white cloak in perfect contrast with the dark earth around it. Two bare feet stuck out from the bottom, gliding inches from the ground, as if the very act of walking was beneath such a delicate form, their skin pale and cold looking. The face, or what could be seen behind layers of banded gold and jet black makeup in the form or lipstick and darkening blush, was feminine, and yet not quite female. Everything about this person seemed off, not conforming to human shape or gender, but something else strange and wrong. Though their eyes were covered entirely by the bands of thick gold wrapped around their skull, they navigated the dark effortlessly.

It floated past a natural archway in the rock, and into a great chamber. The expanse must have been at least 50 yards in diameter, with dull torches lighting the room only just enough to make our dim shapes. Babbling could be heard all around, a cacophony of madness and turmoil, some in whispers, some in a droning dialogue, and other screaming at the top of their lungs as if their feet were held to fire. The voices came from several shelves lining the vast room, and on these shelves sat heads. Some human. Some elf. Some dwarf. Most of the races that inhabited the world above was represented here in some way, shape or form, and each of these heads continued to speak, though no body was connected any longer.

The figure approached a section of shelf, and glided up several feet in the air to stand face to face with it. There, on the shelf, sat a young man's head with brown hair the color of the fading leaves of autumn that give way to winter, thick spectacles still covering his eyes. The thing spoke to the head "Now tell me, child. Just who is this king of the teeth?"