She turns from the portal site swiftly, unconsciously straightening the mess that the teleportation ritual has made of her hair. While her research and scry-scouting has been thorough, and the magical precaution to push the adventurers through the enemy wards even more thorough, there is always the risk of something going wrong on the other side. Time is of the essence, and there is still much to be done.

Her focus is now on her scrying pool, preparing the brief set of spells that will give her a clear view of her emissaries miles above and lands away.

With the magic ready, her deathly pale hand touches the darkened waters of the pool, and in the ripples emerges an image of the four who had stood in front of her but a moment ago.

She allows herself a hesitant breath of relief. So much rides on the next few moments. So much planning, so much effort, and now the fruit of her labors, oh, the very act for which she has dreamed for decades rests in the very capable hands of the four she watches in the pool.

She would be doing the deed herself if she could; indeed she would have done it long ago. The old rage simmers beneath her calm surface, as she watches her emissaries pass through familiar halls. Damn him and his toadying minions. Damn them all! This should be hers!

For years, the one moment that has haunted her dreams is the one in which she clutches his lifeless husk by the throat, and throws him down in front of her enemies, victorious without question. But even in her dreams, she knows that it will never come.

She turns away from the scrying pool towards the closest window, forcing herself to focus for a brief moment. Tonight is only the beginning. Perhaps, after he is dead, she can take out what is left of her rage on the minions that cursed her. The magic of the artifacts used for this teleportation will be used up in the return trip, but there are other ways... always other ways...

Garzahd might be first. She had always liked seeing him squirm.

But there is no time to consider this. Not yet.

She returns to the scrying pool renewed from the brief departure. Already, her emissaries have encountered the Empire's finest troops, and are dispatching them with ease. Would she expect any less of them? Her agents had been watching them for weeks before they did something even she could not expect to do: this team of exiled misfits had actually managed to destroy the corporeal form of the Demon Lord, and banish him back to the hell from which he came.

How could she not summon them to her after that?

How could they not turn down the opportunity that she had offered?

A flicker of light from one of her experiments briefly illuminates her pale, ageless face in the scrying pool. She has spent nearly half of her life damned to these cursed caves: decades that she can never recover, decades devoted almost exclusively to survival, and to tonight.

Tonight, these heroes will bring the crowning act of her vengeance upon the man who ruined her life. Tonight, they will deliver justice for themselves and the rest of the tens of thousands that the Empire has exiled under the earth. Tonight, the nation of Avernum will send a message to the monsters who deemed them unworthy of the sky above: We live. We thrive. We remember.

Tonight, they will kill a king.