113 Years After the Founding of Vassaloth...<br/><br/>(http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d25/Deathbringer6679/untitled2.jpg)<br/><br/><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>Vendigroth City(Wasteland Citadel)</strong></span><br/><hr/>Audience Hall of the Witchking, Tower of Verilith.<br/></div><br/><br/>Vendigroth city has always been known as the wasteland citadel by travelers and merchants who uses the barren wastelands as a shortcut to go further north, after all who in their right mind would built a city, much less a capital in the middle of a barren wastelands? But during its construction the five thousands people that were to called it their home didn't have much of a choice, they were being chased by an empire that loathe them for their betrayal and treachery simply because they finally said, 'enough is enough'. Prior to the existance of Vassaloth, the wastelands had been an unforgiving place and had it not been for Vendigroth city, the merchants and travelers have absolutely no reason to travel there at all but now to the merchants, there are lucrative profits to be made by bringing their exotic and sometimes even basic goods to the citizen of the city and the city's location also provided refuge for the outcasts and a pit stop for travelers.<br/><br/>The city is surrounded by thirty feet high walls that surrounds most of the city in it except for the outlying settlements and despite the fact that the city was built in a wastelands, its inhabitants shows much energy going about their daily life. The city streets are littered with pedestrians and carts going about their ways, and at the side of the streets are the many stalls set up by merchants that have come far and wide to trade at the Wasteland Citadel. Most of those on the streets are Shadow elves who had at one time so boldly followed their leader to overthrow the matriarchal rule of the Matron Mothers but were now outcast and now came to build their own kingdom. There were also various other races that dwells alongside them, namely the human and shadow dwarven slaves of the empire who was freed when they joined the rebellion but these days it's very hard to see any human inside the city as they tend to dwell on the outlying towns nearby and Mystellar where they share that mountain city alongside the shadow dwarves.<br/><br/>In the middle of Vendigroth City stood erected a black tower so high that travelers lost in the barren wastelands could see it from miles away and use it to get their bearing. The tower, ebony in color is further draped by red colored banners with the emblem of Vassaloth on nearly every balcony along its length to the top of the tower where it all came up to a sphere shaped structure on top of it. That is the witchking's chamber and just below it lies the audience hall in what look like a rectangular shaped structure from outside the black  tower.<br/><br/>The audience hall seems quiet for today as always however it is anything but unoccupied, currently three figures could be seen occupying the audience hall. At the end of the Audience hall is a black spiky throne with a symbol of Vassaloth carved upon the wall at the back of the throne, and someone is seen sitting on the throne, posing a calm calculative demeanor. Clad in black leathery armor with a few runic markings on it and draped with torn out black cloth upon cloth that almost covers his entire intricate armor like a cloak, this is none other than the witchking himself. He appears like a statue at the moment, placing his hands onto the throne's arms and lowering his head so that his hood would cover most of his head save his pale lips, the other two figures stood at the entrance of the audience hall not too far away from the throne, armed with ornate dark armor with shades of blue, this guardians of the witchking is the Deathguards, best of the best handpicked by the witchking himself as his own personal bodyguard.<br/><br/>Suddenly, the huge open doorway was greeted with the arrival of three figures, standing pride amidst the fact that they now are going to face their ruler, both feared and respected by the people of Vassaloth as someone who had built this nation from nothing but dirts of the wasteland into a strong nation it is today. The first is a shadow elven woman draped in dark shaded robe that reveals much of her blue shaded skin and despite her rather lithe appearance she emits this aura of grace and elegance like that of a noble she was, as well as seductive when she approach the witchking. She looks to be in her twenties by a human age but her age had perhaps passed that of three generation of men, and as she stood in front of the witchking, her clear violet eyes fell on him waiting for him to respond.<br/><br/>In the middle stood a man, wearing scale mail armor popular nowadays amongst upstart mercenaries but his is different, normal scale mail would be silver in color and made from pure iron, his however made purely with mithril heated up to the point of melting with shadow dwarven engineering and forged into smaller pieces of scale and attached into a grim looking scale mail with intricate rune markings. The man itself looks to be in his thirty who was able to maintain his stout muscled body despite his age and he has a scar that marks his face along his jawline, his brown eyes looks to the witchking with a boastful posture waiting for the ruler of Vassaloth to respond.<br/><br/>Finally stood a lizardfolk amongst those who attended, she is one of the most influential shaman of the enclave, her scaly sin of brown suggested that she is far older than she appears to be, especially with her demeanor of being so active and adventurous unlike the elders of her kind that prefers solitude and wise counseling in their old age. She wore a small brown leather top with a piece of mithril plating on it that covers her breast and a brown scaly leather loincloth that covers her underneath, armed with a knife she sheathed and tucked at her belt, she stood prideful when facing the witchking.<br/><br/>This three are the witchking's most resourceful and successful lieutenants that had in the past proved themselves by helping him in reigning over his kingdom and now, he calls them for a reason. Suddenly, the witchking lifted his head up but not too much the hood still covers most of his face but he purposely let the hood pulled down just a little when he lifted his head to reveal a partial of his face, namely his left eye now completely gray in color including his inner eye, it is almost as if he was blinded but it was not so, on the contrary he could see more than before thanks to this...gift. The witchking looks over at the three figures standing in front of him and finally he stood before making his way over to the nearby window that oversaw the entire wasteland citadel from the safety of the tower of Verilith, his seat of power.<br/><br/><strong>"We have isolated ourselves from the world since our inception into the world's stage for fear that our former enemies, the matron mothers of the empire would return one day and wiped us off the face of this world, but now no longer..."</strong>, the witchking spoke in a cold and confident tone that demands admiration from his subordinates tone despite whatever background they came from.<strong>"There have been news of other kingdoms who had begun to expand at an alarming rate, the marauders and barbarian plague is over, now is the time to expand and I intend to crown myself as a powerful ruler, not just a ruler of two cities with a couple of towns and forts"</strong>. He turns back towards the three leaders and looks at each one of them in the eyes before he walks back to his throne and sat there, his leg crossed and his hands firmly placed onto the throne's arms.<br/><br/><strong>"It is time..."</strong>, he said as he now looked to the sorceress. Lady Asharess, the shadow elven sorceress is favored by the witchking and she knew this for all her time of following his exploit since their time in the dark elven empire she had more than once proven her loyalty as well as resourcefulness in handling things politically related,<strong>"Asharess, you shall be my ambassador to the outside world, you shall represent my kingdom when dealing with other nation and as you know our nation lacked many resources so larger scale of trade is needed with any neighboring nations and above all else, I will entrusts our nation's best interests in your hand, do what needs to be done just as long as we get the best part of the deal"</strong>. The sorceress bows her head and carved a seductive smile on her blue pale lips,<strong>"as you wish mylord..."</strong>.<br/><br/>The witchking now turns his attention to the human commander notable for his recent military successes,<strong>"Armis, you are my military strategist a genius for a young human like you..."</strong>, he suddenly spoke which Armis, the human commander replied with a slight bow before looking up again with a smirk on his face,<strong>"...there shall be time when conquest is preferable and when that time comes...and I assure you it will, your skill will be needed"</strong>.<br/><br/><strong>"Then I shall make the necessary preparations, I will make sure to carve fear and terror into the minds of your enemy so much so they would hate their sovereign for not surrendering to your will unconditionally..."</strong>, Armis has been known to be unstable sometimes and sadistic and that side of him was apparent enough to everyone in the room when he displayed that wicked grin at the end of his sentence.<strong>"...and finally Sithera, your people and mine have had a beneficial alliance and now it is time to take it a step further, as I wish to expand our dominion and for that you shall be tasked with further enhancing our nation by whatever means necessary, there are artifacts, allies and hidden powers out there just waiting for us to stumble onto them..."</strong>, but before the witchking could finish his sentence the lizardfolk shaman interrupts.<br/><br/><strong>"...and ssssooo you want me...to lead and exsssspedition of sssorts?"</strong>, she asks her head tilted to the side questioning her ruler's decision, the other two was quick to turn their gaze to the shaman, their eyebrows furrowed, they could not believe she would have the audacity to interrupt their great leader when he was talking,<em>'as expected from a barbaric overgrown lizard'</em>, that thought was projected telepathically to Armis by the shadow elven sorceress and the human commander chuckled in respond and made no attempt to hide it,<strong>"indeed...but at the same time you are needed as one of our warleaders during times of war, I trusts that there won't be much problem with that?"</strong>. The lizardfolks are warrior beings, their very tradition are based on warrior codes and codes of honor, cold blooded honor that is and to lead this peaceful expedition to her is insulting so the witchking in his wisdom decided to soothe her pride by telling her that she may take part in war should their nation declares one after all Seraphicus is wise enough not to lose the support of one of his loyal lizardfolk supporter.<br/><br/>The witchking then waved his hand off to the three as gesture that they may leave and the three of them took a few steps backward before turning around and leaving the witchking alone in his throne room, to them the witchking entrusts many delicate matters and there's much to be done.