The silence that followed felt as though it crushed my eardrums, so accustomed I'd become to the bedlam of the battle outside this quiet realm I actually gasped at the sudden end to such overwhelming noise.

A faint breeze stirred dust at my feet, soft clouds overhead slow moving, the towering mountain still, silent, watchful. The empty city surrounded me suddenly, the distance closed in a single step, and I found myself standing in the middle of a large, round space, the open ...