Information was something he seized, devoured, swallowed, held taut in his pariah grip, examined, scrutinized, and methodically claimed with Machiavellian diligence. Each morsel could be another calculating measure for the future, constructing Lucifer threads and Tartarean upheaval, employing their mordant methods for cruel, vile ventures. Beyond the Basin, augured shadows, portended veils, and nocturnal shades of grave sedition, crawled, slunk, and slithered, serpentine blood and ichor of sinuous decadence amongst the finite coils of ruses, schemes and immoral fixations. If his necromancy, the pernicious, powerful prowess, could not invoke, spark, ignite and incite entropy, then the spinning wiles of his webbed machinations, snares, or pitfalls would provide bedlam, upheaval, and insurrection. The call for his presence, filtering and flickering over the runes of the Aurora, sought and diverted his attention for a brief interval, but only so that the cold, chilling cranium fixated upon the bellow, what it meant, what it carried. Motions and movements were a pariah’s blend of treachery and distinction, a coveter of darkness, a licentious opus caught and carved from the ferocious hide of Mephistopheles’ grin. As his strides swept beneath pine and fir, as his cretin form extended along rime and frost, he mulled, ruminated, processed. Was another threat growing, burdening, voraciously clawing, along the horizon? Had a scout sensed more intruders, and needed assistance in banishing them down cliff tops and ruins, mauling, maiming, destroying, eradicating? Did a final slaughter need to erupt over the frozen hills to deliver their fervent message of extermination? Upon his arrival, however, he found none of these; a lone warrior upon the fringe, pausing to catch his breath as it parted ways from his frame. He didn’t recognize the painted figure, though he may have held familiar aspects or family resemblances of someone within their icy hold, and came to stand in front of the beast, the impassive sovereign all over again. The Reaper offered a brief nod, a reward of respect for what appeared to be a great trial, a heathenous effort, until the succinct, brief, rough candor of his vocals pervaded into the surroundings. “Report, soldier.” What had made the beast cross over into their threshold to such a vehement degree? What scorched and maimed beyond their walls? How could they deceive it, persuade it, use it for their own means – or destroy it?