The palace was littered with wreckage and fragments of Power Armour. This was a great battlefield even older than the planet's surface, so ancient that its dead were loyal Space Marines from the Great Crusade.
Their opponents had been the Aeldari guarding this seal. No one knew what was sealed here, but the relic remained intact, and the fragments of ancient Power Armour had never been cleared away.
Strange patterns joined together to form an enormous formation. At its heart, on the altar in the very center of this magnificent palace, stood the relic the Drukhari had searched so desperately for.
A sword stood embedded at the formation's focal point, snow-white from end to end, with a faint sheen of dark light. No one knew what material it had been forged from, but its splendor briefly entranced even the Drukhari.
The blade and the entire grand array beneath it were sealed in profound ice formed by the extreme cold radiating from the sword. Even the Drukhari struggled to endure the temperature here.
Only the hilt remained exposed. Several heavily bundled Drukhari were crouching beside it, studying the thing.
"Garcia, how's it going? What do we need to do to get it out?" Sanchez, their leader, had put on a specially made protective suit. The cold penetrated their life-support suits, making this place particularly unpleasant for a race that disliked thick clothing.
"Sanchez, I just tried it. Heat is useless. The ice melts more slowly than the Sword of Gleikvhand releases its freezing power."
"Then what do we do? What do the ancient texts say?"
"Nothing at all. They only describe how powerful it is."
The situation left Sanchez intensely frustrated. The excavation had reached a deadlock, right when every second counted. They had no time to waste.
"Prepare a sacrifice.