Capital City of Sol-Regis – Royal Military Hospital. T-Minus 2 Days Before the Inauguration.
If there was one place in the world that Sir Riven Sudrath loathed more than a muddy, blood-soaked battlefield or a trench filled with toxic gas, it was a hospital.
To Riven, the battlefield was honest. You knew where the blade was coming from; you could hear the roar of the engine and the whistle of the arrow. But a hospital? It was a place of sterile, creeping terror. The sharp, overwhelming scent of antiseptic and alcohol bit at his nostrils, a smell that reminded him of death far more than the copper tang of blood ever did. The walls were a pale, sickly white that seemed designed to drain the color from a man's face, and the silence—broken only by the occasional groan of a wounded soldier or the soft patter of nurses' shoes—was unnerving.
And then, there were the needles.
