The dawn sky above the Draconian crater was painted a dense, blood red.
The crimson hue emanated from the boiling sea of magma churning deep at the crater's base.
At the crater's peak stretched the Altar of the Ancestral Breath. A circular obsidian platform carved at the dawn of time.
Dozens of black obsidian pillars, ten meters high, surrounded the altar's edge like the fingers of a giant. At the peak of each pillar, the ancestral flames burned eternally—blazing in radiant sapphire blue, deep violet, and smoldering gold. Without firewood, without plumes of smoke.
They were the residual breaths of deceased dragons, watching over the arena in sacred silence.
Around the altar, the members of the Council of Elders sat in a ring upon the stone steps. Their reptilian eyes were freezing cold.
At the highest vantage point, Emperor Tharazion sat upon his massive obsidian throne.
