The shard pulsed once, violet light whispering into the void.
Far away, across leagues of ocean no chart dared mark, the pulse found its way to an island hidden not in the sea… but in the sky above.
Shrouded in a mantle of cloud, the island drifted unseen, its cliffs sheathed in waterfalls that tumbled into mist before vanishing into nothing.
The torrents birthed storms, feeding whirlwinds that had lashed sailors for millennia.
To those below, the thunderclouds were curses of the deep sea.
Few imagined that above them, veiled in light and shadow, an entire world hung suspended.
It was not what the world expected of the Iltharim, the "dark elves" whispered off as heretics and shadow-dwellers.
No cavern labyrinths stretched here.
No choking gloom lit by fungus.
Instead, the island was paradise.
Mountains encircled the isle like ancient guardians, their peaks crowned with snow.
Meltwater spilled into a vast glacial lake at the heart of the land.
