You knew.

Okay. I'm not going to bother trying to talk you out of that, I'm not going to bother getting into arguments over the minutiae of the collective intelligences of various nations. It's pointless, and we don't really have the time for that argument.

But fine, I'll play the game. Let me put it from Spinesreach's point of view, as that is the one I'm privy to.

You, Duiran, guard Dendara. In this, your power is absolute. No one witnesses Dendara without your say-so. Spireans have not been privy to the inner workings of Dendara in a very long time.

As we do not have access to Dendara, we rely on Duiran to inform us of Dendara's status.
Duiran has been proselytizing for some time about the state of Dendara, but questions asked about it do not often result in concrete answers.

Therefore, Spinesreach knows very little about Dendara, its status, or its minutiae.

-----

Sterion did not belong to Spinesreach.

Sterion belonged to Sterion; and whatever your issues with the people that used to live there, they kept their charge stable. Sterion and Spinesreach had a shared goal, but that goal was approached as distinct, separate entities, and we held no power over what the Minotaurs did to manage their oaths.

I don't know what you think we do over here in Spinesreach all the time that we're not in contact, but we have our own protocols of guardianship and emergency fallback options; we have our own projects and contingencies to ensure that when the Shadowbound come - an inevitability, one we have known about far longer than your locating the portal to Czjetija - we are ready to weather its influence and acts of force.

We take this job very seriously.

----

So when Duiran approached me, and told me just how bad Dendara was getting, and asked for help, we pledged it, unquestioningly and immediately.

But what is an old and frightening problem to you is new to us; we did not, as mentioned, know very much about Dendara.

Therefore, we began planning from the point of 'learning about the problem', which takes time. And, because we enjoy continuing to live in a world worth living in, despite your actions, we will continue to do this.

----

If you think your actions have galvanized us, it is because you have been ignoring us. It is because you have dismissed us as dangerous and misguided, and because you have not cared to pay attention to the things we have been trying to tell the world.

This is not about territory, I agree. This is about survival.

You said, that perhaps we deserve to die.

I am not ready to die. I gave a promise to someone who means very much to me that I will not die until the sky collapses on top of us, and you may be ready for that to happen any coming week now, but I am not.

Spinesreach will continue to do what Spinesreach has always done. We will address the problem, we will identify it, and we will find a way to circumvent the issues that have been exascerbated by your impatientce, meddling, and decisions to act against the advice of not only Spinesreach, but your own Allies.

Sterion was never ours, it belonged to the Minotaurs. But because they refused to abandon a duty that prevented something more dangerous than anything else in this world from killing us all, you killed them. And now it's at the precipice of killing us all.

Who could have forseen it?? Perhaps We Will Never Know.

Spinesreach is laying claim to Sterion. In absence of the wardens it should have, we will be its wardens. And we will work with the rest of the world to save what's left of this miserable plane of existence, to save your precious Dendara, and to save all of our hides.

You had one job, Duiran: To keep the plane of Life safe. You have done the exact opposite of that, but we'll fix it, and you can have your Dendara back.

It takes a lot of personal strength, and emotional maturity, to admit that you made a mistake and that you are not the ones able to correct it. On behalf of the entirety of Gods-Damned Sapience, I ask you to prove to us that you possess the capacity for that level of maturity and accountability now.

Do not bury us all in the dredges of your hollow pride.

Stop making me spend money on this nonsense,
Inkh, Director of Spinesreach.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 7th of Niuran, in the year 503 MA.