Once they've had enough revelry for the evening, the Regent rising from their throne signals that it's time. Striding to the front of their dais, they lift their glass, still not a drop from it drunk.

"To all of you that made this possible," the say. "For hundreds of years this creature has eluded my touch, unwilling to relinquish Horos from its grasp. It's only now, as the end arrives, that it dared be lured close enough that it could be marked... and oh, will it ever be.

"I truly believe that those standing here now will be my final generation of Kenoma. That you above all others will witness as the final threshold is crossed, leading millennia of my most devoted followers behind you. It is nothing less than what I promised them. That, though they may not be at my side in life, they will follow me in death to a new reality. One where death is no limitation, but simply a rite of passage."

They slowly begin their descent of the stairs as they speak, moving towards Estinien's broken body. Their dark claws hook beneath his chin, lifting it up as if to appraise whether there is any life left in his eyes. Inconclusive, perhaps.

"To think, that the Innocence gave it all up for this. A few stray fools who accomplished nothing for their cause. It shouldn't surprise me, really. If there was one thing the Pleroma will never achieve, it's learning when to quit."

With that, wine glass still in one hand, they dig the claws of the other into the flesh around Estinien's shard.