A hellish aroma clings to the magic-barren interior of the Obsidian Sea Prison, or “The Black Rock,” as its inmates grimly call it. The noxious blend of filth, rot, and death is more potent than any battlefield stench. It’s a smell that Ü’ Werke Elaorm Rûn, the former Commander of the elite Knights of Waning Moon, will become intimately familiar with from this day forward.

Ü, like all the other soldiers, fighters, and political prisoners, finds herself confined, enduring an existence far grimmer than the bloodsoaked fields they once roamed. It’s as if the malevolent forces of every infernal realm have conspired to unleash their vilest filth in this singular, cursed spot by the sea.

But, as the saying goes, ‘Kill a man, you’re a murderer; kill many and you’re a god. Control them all…and you’re a conqueror.’

In this place, “conqueror” and “god” are subjective terms. Those who wield the rod mete out the punishments of the condemned. Murder, without a doubt, is the currency of choice for becoming an authoritative figure in this hellhole. Prisoners do not hope to escape from The Black Rock; they only hope to survive it. The easiest way anyone has ever left is as one of the hundreds of decomposing corpses rounded up each week,  dumped over the cliffs  outside of the prison’s walls into the dark, purple waters below.

In places like The Black Rock, there is no ‘just cause.’ There are no heroes or villains. No good side or bad. There is only power, currency, and ego, all leading to one thing that every side craves:

Control.

She made the worst mistake a warrior could and put herself right in the crosshairs of those who would do anything for control—she went noble. What was she? A fucking paladin? She’d outgrown that damn lullaby.

The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. As she dragged herself onto all fours, her eyes fell to what had once been the deadliest weapons in all of Smíðaheimr—her hands.

Instruments of death, cunning, and years upon years of training, honing them to wield sword and spear, shield and armor, now reduced to twisted, broken ruins of bone and sinew that she could barely feed herself with.

Thousands of beasts and men, even entire warrior clans, had been cut down like a scythe through wheat with these hands.

Not only had the Kingdom broken her mentally, but they  made sure to finish the job physically, reminding her she had no authority.

Zero.

Nothing.

No control.

As if the universe wanted to drive that point home, the club wielded by the brutish ogre of the half-giant (ogre being a compliment) Big Brutus, came crashing down on her lower back, shooting strands of electric pain through her spine, dropping her back onto her stomach.

Through her hair, grimy and slick with sweat, caked in perspiration-soaked mud, she felt herself yanked up, bear-paw like hands twisting her hair, causing her body to bend in a morbid “U” shaped picture of disgust.

She felt Big Brutus’ hot, stinking breath in her ear, whispering, “Looks like you didn’t listen, you elven whore. Where’s your shiny white armor now? I ‘spose we’re going to have another lesson in manners.”

Ü’s face slammed back into the dirt, her maimed hands giving out beneath her as she tried to catch herself. Something in her mouth dislodged on impact and spat free in a luge of blood.

Funny, she thought as sweat and dirt stung her eyes.

She saw a white piece of bone laying on the ground as Big Brutus grabbed her ankle and began to drag her to her new home.

That’s my tooth.