24

"Once I return, I'm going to take over the Ziggurat and give these people the leader they need."

"I'll miss you," Alexius says. "I'll never understand this ambition of yours, but I respect it. Just…not enough to stay in this place."

"But first," Dr. Sabbatine says, "we must stabilize the rift and find some way to recapture the False Icon. And we know so little! Is the False Icon coterminous with the gray mountain? Why are the other Icons silent? What are all these wonderful objects tumbling into our world? And what is Stralchus planning?"

"What is Stralchus planning?" Alexius echoes. No one thinks the mystic will just sit around while you open the rift, despite the False Icon's constant attacks on the Ziggurat.

You've done your best to look into that, devising various schemes and stratagems to protect the village against Stralchus and the False Icons.

Over the past few weeks you…