He could scarcely comprehend the voices and images running through his mind. He saw visions of death. Visions of fire and ice and poison, of twisted abominations formed from races known and unknown. A phalanx of orc warriors stood against a horde of winged monstrosities. The Imperial Capital sank as a great flood claimed the desert. A cloaked figure took the sun, and with its fire, made a spear, which it used to pierce the heart of the world. From the world's sundered core sprang a plague, which twisted human, elf, dwarf, orc, kobold, and dragon. A millipede with wings of light and a sword of sable terror descended upon the land, and with its blade, culled all, turning the floodwaters red, even as a pillar of flesh rose from the tides of blood.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">SA TASH WEJ HAJ</span>. The old tongue. The speech of Titus' own sect. How did it--<span style="font-style: italic">DO NOT BE  AFRAID. THE END IS NIGH. YOU, AS WITH ALL MEN, SHALL BE PURGED. IT IS THE WAY OF NATURE. TO MAKE WAY FOR THE NEW RACE OF MAN, THE OLD MUST PASS.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">WE AWOKE IN LIGHT</span>.<br/><br/>Titus recoiled as if struck, so powerful was the creature's psychic presence.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">WE WERE THE FIRST MEN. CHILDREN OF WATER, AS YOU ARE CHILDREN OF EARTH, AS THE LAST WILL BE CHILDREN OF AIR.</span><br/><br/>His vision swam, replacing the sights of impending doom with images of past glories, never to be realized again. He saw great cathedrals carved into cliffsides. Great, ichthyoid sentinels lumbered across a snow-capped mountain, bearing a palanquin, on which sat a golden-armored form, the lamellar scales arranged in a perfect copy of its own real scales. Towering coral spires jutted from the ocean, sung into existence by piscine serf-engineers.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">WE LIVED IN GLORY. WE SAW THE BIRTH OF TIME AND SPACE, EVEN AS WE AROSE FROM THE EUPHOTIC CHAOS. WE SPRANG FROM THE FIRST GODS' LOINS, AND WE FED THEM WITH WORSHIP. THEY ARE GONE NOW. ONE ROSE ABOVE ALL IN LOVE AND WORSHIP, FOR SHE WAS THE MOTHER. SHE TOOK A LOVER, A MAN FROM OUTSIDE. HE SPOKE IN HER EAR AND CORRUPTED HER. SHE TURNED AGAINST US AND WE FOUGHT HER ALONGSIDE OUR GODS. HER POWER WAS GREAT, AND THE OTHER GODS FELL. SHE SLEW US ALSO, FOR WE THREW OURSELVES UPON HER LIKE CRASHING WAVES. OUR WARRIORS BOUGHT TIME. OUR PRIEST-KINGS JOINED AND, WITH THE LAST OF OUR STRENGTH, THEY SEALED HER AND OUR GREATEST CITY AWAY. WE PASSED. THE WORLD MOVED ON, AND THE AGE OF WATER BECAME THE AGE OF EARTH. SHE MADE NEW LIFE FROM STONE AND GAVE THEM FIRE. <br/><br/>SHE SLEPT, BUT NOW SHE WAKES, FOR OUR NUMBERS DWINDLED. THE FIRST MEN BECAME TWISTED BY THE NIGHTMARES OF THE SLEEPING MOTHER. ONE BY ONE, THEY TURNED. NO LONGER COULD WE MAINTAIN THE VIGIL. THE UN-MEN OVERWHELMED US. I AM THE LAST. I SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, AS I SPOKE FOR THE LIVING. I SPEAK NOW. THAT WHICH SLEEPS NOW WAKES, AND SHE WAKES TO BRING A NEW AGE. SHE FINDS ALL WANTING, AND SEEKS TO REBUILD. THE END IS NIGH. <br/><br/>THE WORLD SHALL DIE AND BE REBORN. <br/><br/>THE MOTHER AND HER SERVANTS RISE.<br/><br/>DAGON.<br/><br/>CTHULHU.<br/><br/>HYDRA.<br/><br/>LEVIATHAN.<br/><br/>BEHEMOTH.</span><br/><br/>'Which one is the mother?' Titus muttered aloud, his eyes focusing once more on the present as the visions ended. The Speaker looked at him and spoke. Its voice was tinged with both sorrow and wounded pride, the arrogance of an ancient race wounded by the traumas of an apocalypse.<br/><br/>'None of those. Her name is known to you, Servant of the Euphotic.'<br/><br/>Further queries along those lines were met with the same response. He failed to understand what it meant by telling him that he already knew. He tried another approach. 'What happened to the aether? Where is the Veil here?'<br/><br/>'That which you call aether is absent in this realm,' it rumbled. 'You are beyond the reach of space and time. You are in R'lyeh, the City Which Sleeps, and the City has begun to wake.'