8

The False Icon is pleased. It shows you images of all that it can offer you: wealth and glory and power beyond the dreams of the Empress of Byzantium, a mastery of time and space, a rule that lasts millennia, perhaps forever. Of course, you will need to pretend to have other goals.

Yes, the False Icon can assuredly help you there. Work toward that goal, it tells you.

The False Icon releases its grip on your mind. It seems to circle you, curious, offering you what you need right now. Gray runes churn within it, full of promises, and with no talk of subsequent obligation. It seems eager but not desperate. It can destroy Stralchus at any time, the Icon assures you…but it would like you to be its hand.