Nyxara Vaelthane

"Ugh, another batch of failures," Nyxara muttered, wiping gore from her charcoal-plated gauntlet onto a twitching ghoul carcass. The dungeon reeked of formaldehyde and rotting viscera—her favorite perfume. Steel-gray eyes narrowed at the dissected abominations strapped to rusted tables. "Twelve specimens... twelve pathetic attempts to splice shadowfiend ganglia with vampire cortexes..." Her dagger thunked into a still-screaming wight's forehead, silencing it mid-shriek. "Mother says these are 'acceptable test subjects'," she mimicked in a singsong voice, yanking the blade free with a wet schlick. Black dragonblood mana crackled around her fingertips as she sutured a frost troll's severed tongue onto a necrotic harpy. "But where's the challenge? Where's the screaming poetry