Somewhere not in any region or realm or world of Legends, nor in any other game-world, a restless figure on a black throne.

The figure was garbed in black like the throne that they sat on, although their clothes appeared made of fine silks and satins, whilst the throne itself was made of curling organic shapes, carved out of obsidian glass.

The figure’s skin was as bone white and their hair a blanket of spun silver. Their brow was a little higher than a normal humans’, and their eyes were a little wider and somehow deeper. A brilliant line of gold like a cat’s eye caught in the light.

Lord Pwyll, Fey Duke, was bored, which perhaps wasn’t so surprising, for a creature who had been alive for at least five thousand years. Lord Pwyll had seen entire generations of mortals come and ago, just as they had seen entire civilizations, empires, and even worlds fade.

After all that excitement, it was easy to imagine why the Lord of the Realm of the Fey was peeved.

“My Lord, the time is approaching,” a voice disturbed his most infernal highness, and he didn’t even raise his head to see his senior courtier, a woman by the name of Vardis whom he had plucked from the fifth century Mongolia. She had been fiercer back then, but now her brutality had tempered into a quiet, thought-out cruelty. A trait that Lord Pwyll both admired, and tired of.

“Everything is in place. Our Sorcerers have detected the newest door, and we are ready to begin our exploration.”

“Exploration?” Lord Pwyll finally looked up. His gaze settled on the woman with a look that was so cold that even Vardis, the butcher of entire villages, looked down.

She wore her dark hair splayed about her head in a fan, braced with steel spikes, and her lips were smudged with a line of midnight blue dye. Even though she wore the fine black tunic and clothes of the Fey, the mortal woman still had her ancient bronze arm rings; a personal foible that Lord Pwyll had allowed her to keep.

“Now is not the time for Exploration! Do you realize how imperiled my Realm is? How small it has become?!” Lord Pwyll thundered at her, pleased that he could take out his frustration on someone.

“I do, Sire,” Vardis kept her gaze lowered, but her tone was firm.

Ah, that is what I like about her, Pwyll grinned to himself. There was still an air of resolute defiance underneath it all, even when she knew that he could snuff her out with a snap of his fingers.

But that didn’t change anything, did it? His mood quickly changed, as it was wont to do these centuries.

The Fey Realm of Annwn had once been feared throughout all of creation. Mortals were scared to leave the confines of their cozy cottages at night, for fear that the dark woods held entryways into his realm—and they had.

They had put charms over their doors, prayed at crossroads or at wells, fearing that creatures from the Fey would come and steal them away—and they would have.

Mortals had clutched at religious symbols, or at science, trying to dispel the fear of the Fey. And, rather disgustingly, it had worked.

The Realm of the Fey, the Realm of Annwn, had grown smaller and smaller, more and more removed from the mortal realms as they even began to distrust their own dreaming. Annwn was now only a fraction what it had once been and was getting weaker by the year.

Until now, that was.

Until a weakness, a portal, a door had been found back into the realm of mortals—through one of their own fantasy realms, of all things!

“It shows how much they hanker after us, I suppose,” Lord Pwyll congratulated himself for something which he had never done.

“On their own, they have built a realm of dreams and imagination, where mortals trade their souls for glory and fantasy. Just like the Annwn of old!” the infernal Duke chuckled.

“Well, we shall give them the escape that they so sincerely crave!” Pwyll said savagely.

“We shall fill the halls of Annwn once more with the cries of a thousand—of ten thousand—servants! We shall return the mortals back to their proper place in things!”

There was a moment of silence after the outburst before Vardis cleared her throat.

“Sire? What was your order again?”

The infernal Fey Duke scowled at her apparent insolence, a crime that he would have committed her to ten years on the rack for in any other time.

But not right now. There was more important work to be done!

“You are to send in our warriors. Not to explore this realm, but to secure it for me. Tell them to do whatever needs to be done. Understand how this realm works and seize it for me. In the meantime, task our sorcerers with taking over this machine they use to create their worlds.”

Yes indeed, Lord Pwyll was even beginning to feel a little inspired, interested even, in what was going to come next.

The land of the Fey would return to glory, and no mortal would feel safe, ever again.