To the survivors of the Aerie and Sapience at large,

After having been indisposed for some months, I return to hear a tale as old as time. I walk the ruins of the Aerie, empty and hollow, and cannot help but wonder why mortals choose the same fate again and again and again: to trust Divinity; to cast one's fate into the hands of a higher power and pray for a salvation that will never come. Is this the best we could strive for?

For eons, we mortals of Sapience lived ignorant of our place within this world. We believed that we were all that was. That our Creator was The Creator. That His Gods were The Gods. That our place was confined to serving as vessels for Divinity, Who were our Betters. Devotion was the only way. It was our Purpose. So They said.

But it was all a lie.

I have watched a Creator rise and a Creator fall. I have watched gods die. I have watched Divinity rise from our own prayers. I have grasped at its power myself. And if anything is clearer than day to me, it is this: reality is malleable and it is we who are its true architects.

-Our- faith dictates what is true. How, then, are we still the loyal servants? The mortal sacrifices. The would-be vessels. The martyrs. Why do we choose -this-? To be simple, unquestioning sycophants. To live and die for some greater purpose dictated by One Who has no claim to wisdom other than birthright and happenstance.

The "Great Dau" did not save the Aerie. No, the only thing that could save the Aerie is itself.

Survivors and observers of the Aerie's destruction, heed this lesson:

It is faith in unworthy powers that keeps you in chains - an insidious collar that you readily place upon your own neck - that you, the enslaved, fuel and empower to ensure you never change your station or rise above what you are. Faith is the most powerful weapon we possess, but we do so little to ensure They are worthy of it.

There is another way. We need only seek it.

Sheryni Nebre'seir

Penned by my hand on Closday, the 3rd of Slyphian, in the year 16 AC.