The winter King listened to the string of responses, another quiet, molten fixture on the horizon. He contemplated, he designed, and he calculated the distinctive ruminations of a Machiavellian regime, Tartarean guile sculpted into the sinister seams. The Reaper held respect for those of sleuth inclinations, dastardly, covert operations sprung and strung together in taut, heightened shadows, the ability to hide amongst the gallows and shove constituents into the merciless void. While he couldn’t tangle into the same folds and webs, too intimidating, too overpowering, too violent, too villainous from the outskirts of his satanic frame to the billowing maelstrom of his soul, the beast could appreciate clandestine plots and collapse, an unraveling of order at the hands of peons and pawns. He could manipulate with force, but these sleuths, these sneaks could swindle and barter, slide and serpentine, regale with innocent tongues and lay waste with a single unraveled secret. Being able to command and wield an army of titans and a bundling of provocateurs amused and satisfied him greatly, and the piercing gleam of his stare resembled the sentiments – he ignored the queries of Mauja’s daughter (he hadn’t known her whereabouts, or cared really, since the days of the fallen Edge), and focused primarily on the uses, the macabre whims of an illustrious herd, and the unsung triumph they were due to serenade. Each being had their advantages and abilities; it would be a shame to lose another who could aid them in the future endeavors (the fall, the destruction, the havoc, the scorn, the mutilation and mauling of several nations – the rising of an empire, the grandeur, the decadence, of all their avaricious aspirations). He had no intentions of sprucing up the conversation and diatribe with all the laden qualities of the Basin, the newcomer would be able to see and discover them for himself, feel, touch, taste, relish and savor the power, the dominance, the supremacy stored and built within glacial walls and icy palisades, opening his mouth again to chisel his acceptance, bold and rare, into the air. “You are welcome to stay.” A statue, a monolith, a cretin and infidel, poised aloft in his Siberian home, embarked further into the void to utter one more inquiry, assuring another piece, another omen, another token, into their bestial midst. “Would Phantom suit you?”

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.