... A catacomb, lined with spiderwebs. Your vision is flatter, somehow. As you touch her- no, your- right eye, you feel the soft silkiness of an eye patch. You remember the sacrifice you have made; after all, what is the cost of an eye for truer sight?

This was what drew you to the Motherlings. The pure exploration of knowledge between man and spider, where the world is explored and understood as equals. You know of the Fingerkings and their snares of knowledge and hungers, and of the Copper, whose lords lair in the glass.

You are a scholar, not a fighter. Bu this war has still costed you. You trace a thin scar across your neck, from when the Copper had first killed you. You are safer now, down here, where you search for a way to end the war.

Once, you stumbled across a story of an old emissary from the Rosers. It promised an end to the war with the Rosers to the Motherlings. But the old spinners mistrusted it, and now it remains imprisoned.

You still hold hope that peace may come to the city, or at least the bloodshed between the Rosers and the Motherlings may end; That together, you both can drive the invading Copper and the hands of the Bazaar from your city.

When you are assigned to synthesize an acid to help carve new tunnels into the earth, you quietly take a jug of acid, and slip into the deeper archives where it may be imprisoned.

You find its prison. Behind the glass, you see a room of mirrors, and a being, bundled in Parabolan silks so tightly it cannot move. They called the emissary the King in a Thousand Silks for its appearance, but now you can see the mockery of it: its splendor is now its prison.

You cross behind the glass, and look at the being. What may be its head looks at you, and speaks in a raspy voice. "Why torment me further?"

You answer: you are here to free it, if it will tell you how to end the war.

It looks at you. "You must understand what the Motherlings want." You feel the prison melt away into the vast darkness of space. You see a star, which speaks in a booming voice. It speaks of your crimes in coronas; It speaks of your punishment in blazing hydrogen. You feel yourself burn, your body eaten by flames, until you return to the King's prison.

"The Motherlings will bring a star to the Neath. And all of those who have defied their laws, all of those who have breathe despite their death, will burn." You gently touch your scar. It looks at you, its uncovered eyes blazing. "If I cannot prevent the war, I will stop that. With your aid."

Without hesitation, you burn through its bonds with your acid. It rises, its presence tremoring through dreams. Its veil falls from its face, and your mind burns with what lies behind it.

When you awake, you feel your body is no longer your own. You move among the wards where the carvers sleep, and you mark them in dreams. When you sleep, you see the King move among their dreams, and showing what lies behind its veils. Madness walks among the Motherlings' workers, and their ambition fails.

You see the spiders see you, and what lies in your mind. The Motherlings are swift to steal your mirror, and imprison you for the crime of glass whispering.

The leaders see you in your cell.
"Our plan cannot be given to our enemies."
"But if we end her, the King will flee as well."
"There is a place where schemes fall, where spies lay down their regrets and plots. If that becomes her prison, it will be eternal, for her, and for the King."

Your mind leaves the body of the Inquisitive Scholar. You look through a shard of mirror, to a cave filled with drowning purple light. There, a skeleton, wrapped in silks, lays, finger pointed towards you. The eye sockets glow with trapped power. You feel something rise behind you. Silk wraps around your eyes, leaving you in darkness. "For your protection." The voice of the King says.