Location:Zhū'kethara — Research Chambers, Eastern Wing
Date/Time:Late Infernorest, 9939 AZI
Realm:Demon Realm
The research chambers smelled of failure.
Not dramatically — not the acrid stink of an explosion or the copper-sharp scent of spilled blood. A quieter failure. The flat mineral tang of expired reagents. The sour residue of cultivation compounds that had been mixed, tested, discarded, and mixed again in configurations that grew more desperate as the weeks passed. Rows of glass vials lined the stone workbenches — some clouded, some crystallised, some holding liquids in colours that had no business existing outside of a healer's worst nightmares. Every one of them labelled in Vaelith's precise hand. Every one of them crossed through.
Ren stood at the chamber's entrance and read the room the way he read everything — through the Common Path first, the eyes second.
