Mother of Decay,

Daughter of Rot,

The Moss-Crowned Crone,

The Seat of Chaos extends its thanks.

The Revelry was a delight - a night of mockery, of indulgence, of mirth. A play upon the stage of ruin, its actors capering in masks and capes, its script a foregone conclusion. We watched the flames take the effigies of our adversaries, and we laughed. It was a fine spectacle, to see them blacken and crumble to cinder. A fine thing indeed.

And yet the night of jest pales before the gift You left us.

You sent forth Your Hollowheart brambles to strangle the streets. You sent roots to sunder stone and shatter homes. The vines choked the alleys, the thorns drank deep of flesh, and all was swallowed in ruin. A cleansing, You called it. A purging of the weak so that we might rise unburdened, You told me.

I listened.

I watched.

I walked through the blood-drenched streets You left behind and breathed deep of Your wisdom.

And then I followed in Your example, but without the limitations.

We did not stay our hand. We did not hesitate. We did not play by the rules of this world. Chaos does not play by rules, even those set by Goddesses. Chaos does not abide by the walls of a garden, nor does it yield to the will of those who would cultivate its force.

Look now upon what You have wrought.

The Sorrows did not die. The streets did not stay empty, nor did the ruined flesh rot into nothing. The roots and thorns You sent did not simply take - they were made to give. They were forced to change. They were transfigured, and what You sought to break has become something greater than it was.

We fed the land with Chaos, and it bore forth a profane harvest like none before.

And the ones You sought to cull?

You did so because You saw no potential in them, or perhaps because You did. Whether Your hand was guided because You did not see or because You did, it matters not. The outcome remains the same.

We did not cast them aside, as lesser nations might. We are not so wasteful. What You deemed frail, we have reforged. What You claimed unworthy, we have made profane and deadly. In the crucible of Chaos, they have been remade, their forms twisted beyond the confines of Nature's intent. The Sorrowborne Sentinels rise - not as the shepherds of a stagnant cycle, but as the harbingers of something new, something unbound, something You will never reclaim.

The Seed has taken root. It has not ceased its work. The heart of Your gift, once Hollow, once natural, is so no longer. It throbs now with the lifeblood of the Seed, its will made ruinous, its purpose no longer Yours. Twisted plantlife shudders in the throes of an apotheosis that should not be, yet is. The ground itself has split beneath its rise, and from that wound, new forms unfurl - neither of Your making nor under Your dominion. It is not the cycle reborn, but something else entirely. Something that heralds a different end.

Perhaps it will spread. Perhaps it will reshape more than You intended. But You need not worry. Surely, there is nothing to fear.

As the vines are twisted and warped and the brambles made anathema, a new effigy sways in the Sorrows - one not crafted by Your hand. A monument to a lesson learned, a warning fashioned of that which ought not be.

And so, I thank You, Mother of Rot, for what You have given me.

For the lesson.

For the ruin.

For the gift.

And for the words You spoke to me that night, "It is refreshing to find in a mortal one who is My equal in such energy."

Perhaps, in this, You were wrong.


Your most dutiful and formal ally in Rot and Ruin,

~II

[X] Overseer Grandue Xeh'ria, Keeper of the Iron Crown

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

Penned by my hand on the 21st of Mayan, in the year 970 AF.