I don’t know why I feel like I’m saying ‘goodbye’ for the last time to Snake. Why I feel like I’m going to my death. As if regardless if I am successful and able to answer Lord Asmodel’s summons or not, I will be irrevocably changed and the Weaver that returns will be nothing like the Weaver that left. I reflect on the few times in this life I have felt the same impending destruction. The memories do nothing to settle my stomach and I force my mind blank.

I pull the Thoth Hierophant card from my pocket. “Open the way to the Path of Vau, that I may proceed!” The character in the card turns his hand in the same gesture as turning a key. There is a flash of light followed by the dissolution into darkness.

4,112 words.