[The following dictation has been transcribed in an amaranthine, flowing script]

H O P E


We've witnessed your unanswered plea for aide to the nations of the plane. Rightly so, you require assistance. Your shrines lay in ruin and the citizens of Jaru are sheltered from your foolish faith by His uncontested Sovereignty, His Spear has seen to that. With great thanksgiving they have so enthusiastically embraced the benevolent enlightenment of the Lord of Oblivion's Priesthood, His Crown has seen to that.

Your wayward priests tell us of the shattered faith of your people, the stories you tell one another of abandoned puppies whose master returns. But He has not returned, has He? Your God has abandoned you and your prayers for salvation from our hand go unanswered. You are swimming in a sea of other people's hopes and expectations. Men have drowned in seas like that. Let it not be so, bloodied and battered of Targossas.

Where He has ignored your cries, perhaps He will answer to our demand.

Truly, there is little enjoyment in slaughtering the lambs if the Shepherd does not witness the destruction. Run along children, scramble to tell the world that 'it just aint so' and that your faith is strong as ever, let father do what you could not.


[end of transcription]

At any cost,

[X] Grandue Xeh'ria, Voice of the Apocalypse

[A small octagon encircles a raised "II" here, inscribed in thick, amethyst ink]

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Sarapin, in the year 880 AF.