Absolom hissed, recoiling from the presence that stood before them. In that slight figure there stood an embodiment the Spellcaster could barely begin to describe, it's nature too vast to understand. He gazed upon it with his Deathsight and saw only a hole in reality, a gateway to something akin to the Veil. The closest he could come to rationalizing the fundamental paradox of the piscine creature was that it embodied a microcosm, a preserved fragment of a civilization long ground to dust. Within it's untold fathoms dwelt the memories of a race long forgotten, of a species that now only existed as degenerate beasts. The shade stood as a last will and testament to gods long dead, a warning to those who would come after. It was an epitaph of the damned, the little black box of Those Who Came Before. From it's form streamed an infinitesimal swarm of gossamer strands, each touching a Legionnaire and imparting... something. Knowledge. A warning. Few would understand what they were seeing, but some -Titus, Ajax, Jax, and perhaps Eli- might comprehend fragments.<br/><br/>Cain looked between the Skeleton, the Legionnaires, and the Shade uneasily, her arm still wrapped around the hobbled spellcaster. They two alone stood unaffected by the unseen strands, and Cain had no Deathsight with which to see the cause of the sudden catatonia among the troops. Warily, she drew her blade and trained it on the ghostly figure. The action seemed to weigh down heavily upon her, her every movement slowed as if dragging her limbs against an unrelenting current.<br/><br/>"Who are you?<span style="font-style: italic">What</span>are you? What is this place?"<br/><br/>"And where has the Veil gone?" Absolom muttered quietly, clumsily drawing his own blade from it's cane-scabbard.<br/><span style="color: #000000">It has gone where all things must go, and from whence all things come. Do not trust this creature. Do not tarry. The Last Church is a testament to all that is wrong with you mortal races, to why you all must be purged.</span>