I was a scholar once. Of vast renown among those beyond influence of the Great Machine. Here, I told my House. See the truth and speak it with me. They refused, and so I left, unable to consume the bile of their belief. The wind was bitter, no hollowhot to warm me. The terrain full of danger, no scattercape to shield me. I was alone, wasting beneath a blanket of snow. But then, in deepened slumber, they came to me. Larger than life, a shadow of stars that rose up around me and whispered my name in a crescendo that threatened to boil my brain. A roar of imperious inquiry surged in my veins, and when it finally subsided, only one question remained: What did I want? Knowledge. Percipience. Enlightenment. How simple. Quaint and predictable. The words rang in my ears like a gong. Then we will REMAKE you, to guide your path toward all knowledge, and you will be bound to a T H O U S A N D D E A T H S. On that last breath, you will submit, claimed forever, made and unmade among the specter of the stars, until the end of time. I did not have to think. Did not have to see or speak. All I needed… was to know. —An excerpt from "The Tragical Scribe"