The thick, humid air of the underground chamber carried the acrid smell of sweat, worn leather, and rusted metal. Torches fixed to the rough stone walls cast moving shadows that danced like specters across the weathered faces of the former prisoners. Sitting on an abandoned metal crate, a remnant from a time when these tunnels served as warehouses, Mordred silently observed the group of hunters he had recently torn from the draconic dungeons.
These men and women had once been formidable fighters, human predators capable of tracking and bringing down creatures that others wouldn't even dare face in dreams. But captivity had broken them, branded them with the red-hot iron of humiliation and suffering. Their bodies bore the scars of refined tortures, their gazes betrayed a smoldering rage that simmered beneath the surface, and their movements, even in training, retained that desperate brutality of those who had learned that violence was the only language their jailers understood.
