| abstract | - The Elder Goddess, Kilmandaros is witness to a landscape where several dragons are lying dead. She strides across the realm to a rent. Behind her, the warren of Kurald Emurlahn is in its death throes, civil wars are still raging and the fragmenting of the realm has already begun. Scavengers keep arriving, tearing away pieces and destroying each other for the scraps. She strides through the rent. Gothos is travelling around the realm, affixing creatures in battle such as the Soletaken dragon and the two Elder gods close to him, with ice from Omtose Phellack, a ritual powerful enough to hold them frozen with ice until the day Omtose Phellack itself shatters. He muses about the mortality of Omtose Phellack, and now firmly believes that all of it is going to come to an end someday. He hears two Elder Gods arguing and descends a fissure to find Mael and Kilmandaros , with a mortally wounded and now immobile Scabandari Bloodeye cowering some distance away. Kilmandaros has injured him irrevocably and means to kill him for his betrayal of Silchas Ruin. Kilmandaros wants to kill him immediately, while Mael tries to explain that because of the ritual that has descended on this realm, death itself is denied. In return for both Mael and Kilmandaros owing him a debt, Gothos fashions a Finnest that will hold Scabandari's soul after his death. Having made this arrangement, Kilmandaros crushes Scabandari's skull, killing him. As repayment of the debt that the two just acknowledged, Gothos keeps the Finnest with himself, informing Mael that he intends to do something horrible to Scabandari's soul now residing there. Kilmandaros returns to the rent to find Anomandaris Purake, and after some negotiations, they form an alliance to drive away the pretenders from Kurald Emurlahn. They use another path to enter the demesne, and set about cleaning the realm.
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