With the traveler's appearance in the doorway, the silence was cut by a barely audible rustle. Unhurriedly, as if awakening from a centuries-long slumber, Messmer turned. His movement was fluid and unnaturally precise. From the folds of his cloak, a crimson serpent slithered out silently, fixing the intruder with its cold emerald eyes.

Messmer's right hand came to rest upon the spear's shaft. His fingers closed around it with a quiet, authoritative click, as if bony joints had, after long years, finally found their true purpose. He did not draw the weapon — he acknowledged it, as an extension of his will.

«Many have come here...» — his voice finally sounded, low and melodious like a funeral hymn. «Wretched souls who saw salvation in the Shadow. Seekers of truth, desperate to tear it out with fangs and claws. Their ashes now fertilize this plateau. Their whispers... I hear them in the wind scraping against the stones.»

«You are but another ghost in their long procession. A hungry gaze, fixed upon that which does not belong to you. Upon the power that burns. Upon the truth that poisons.»