I meet with Titus Valerius and the fallen Thief at the Sanctum of Farsight within the burial grounds known as the Howling Sepulchers. Whilst performing a ritual to locate the source of a magical disturbance, a vision develops before us of three figures, our comrade Kelmen Locke, Regent Cassipia the leader of the Scaled Court, and her pet diplomat Little Leaf.

We could but watch as our worst fears played out before us. Like watching a tragedy we had seen often before, we knew how this was fated to end; but we watch on anyway in the naive hope that this performance will end differently. It didn’t. Cassipia has somehow discovered an ancient Nedic ritual to gain the powers equal of the Celestial Serpent, in order to begin creating a “new and better world”; which sounds very much like the ambitions of the Serpent.

My stomach turned uneasily in the aftermath of the spectacle when I considered the part I have played in this madness. The Regent was only able to collect what she needed from The Spawning Pools and the Valley of the Scars because I made it possible. And who knows what vital information she was able to procure from Skyreach itself after I had unwittingly cleared a path. I always knew I was being manipulated of course, but what I never guessed at was the real reason. I believed I knew what she wanted because she told me what I wanted to believe. The weight of my failure can only be measured by my anger, and whilst her manipulations are to be the mark of my ire, she deserves less contempt than I who she made her dupe.

S.K