What once lived in darkness has tasted daylight—sweet drops of it clinging to the limbs of a forest on the slopes of the mountains of madness, above a land long laid to ruin, where broken veins across the barren hills drain old blood into a dying horizon. A soft song drifts among the branches, carried on the whispers of the awakened, who crawl forth to look upon forsaken, crumbling towers where denizens cling to the pages, moth-eaten and ancient, of a secret alchemy, certain it will one day save them. Waves are crashing in the distance, drawing near, and the foundation is built on dry sand. Sighs rustle on the mountain slope, breath of a choking world desperate for air, waiting for the winds to change, ready again to fall to its knees.

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