Duirani skills connect you to Dendara. Your spirits are connected to Dendara. If Dendara is being corrupted by Shadow, you and your spirits are open to that corruption too. Have you even bothered to question it? Question the urge to take the control of the primary rift to Czjetija from people capable of recognizing and halting an incursion? Because that urge is -precisely- the kind of thing the Shadow Mother would ease into your thoughts. The first sign of becoming under Her influence is a change in personality.

Tell me, Voice, are you the same person lately? Have you made any decisions your perhaps not-all-that-former self would be aghast at? Become more bloodthirsty, more reckless? Both signs of Shadowbound encroachment upon you. The wilds are bloodthirsty and ruthless, but they are not rabid and thoughtless- and if they are, that is the sign of sickness.

I beg you to -think- about what you are doing. What is your plan here? You take Sterion, and then what? Are your people trained to recognize the first signs of the Shadowplague? Are you capable of banishing Her minions back to the Shadow Plane if it progresses too far? Would you know what the rift opening further even looks like? Taking the rift from the hands of those with both training and a vested interest in keeping it closed is an open invitation to Ohlsana to come through. And She is always watching, and waiting for any opening.

You've come this far, and you're desperate to heal the wounds in Dendara, and eating crow about your actions would be extremely unpleasant. I get it. But wouldn't you rather be the type of leader that owns their mistakes and rights them instead of being like your last Voice, who pushed the madness until forced to stop?

Whether or not you like us, or like the Earthen, or like not being able to control every avenue of potential world-ending threat, the reality is that some things MUST remain in the guardianship of others even if you dislike them. We all need to trust that none of us want our entire existence to be destroyed.

And to that end - our offer to find solutions to Shadow's corruption of Dendara was sincere, and it was never revoked. Believe it or not, we don't want life to die either.

You're better than this. Let's figure out a solution the right way.

Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 15th of Midsummer, in the year 503 MA.