Creak.
The secret wooden door, camouflaged seamlessly into the wall, slowly groaned open.
Roland had actually anticipated this from the start—ever since his instincts picked up on the anomaly in the room's air pressure, and his eyes noticed the asymmetrical lines on the left wall. Yet, when the figure behind the door finally stepped out from the shadows, Roland felt a sensation that had long been dead within him: pure, unadulterated curiosity.
The man who emerged was no towering giant. His build was entirely average—a man with jet-black hair that was beginning to salt at the temples.
The cloak draped over his shoulders was extraordinarily plain. A dull, earthy brown, devoid of a single thread of gold embroidery, devoid of any faction emblems. There was no crown upon his head. No ancestral staff in his hand. He possessed absolutely none of the gaudy attributes that screamed the word 'ruler.'
Yet, his eyes more than compensated for any physical lack of grandeur.
