Hanoa the Exile says: I will tell you what happened. I was in the cypher archive. Then the attack came.
Hanoa the Exile says: Black steel chains pierced the veil. Made of the same metal you found in the cave.
Hanoa the Exile says: Chains latched onto the archive. Ripped it out. Magic struck me. I escaped.
Hanoa the Exile says: I felt the touch of the Maw. It spread over me. I began to feel strange.
Hanoa the Exile says: I could not sense the other jiro. The Circle was gone. I was alone. Severed.
Hanoa the Exile says: I returned to the Circle. They sent me away. I do not blame them. The Maw taint must not spread.
Hanoa the Exile says: Here. This was the cypher archive. Now it is a scar on the land.
Hanoa the Exile says: Devourers consume the magic of the land. They are unstable. Perhaps this is where they entered Zereth Mortis?
Pulled by the Jailer’s chains from a distant, unknown realm, this malfunctioning guardian seeks to protect the inscrutable knowledge known as “cyphers.” It uses the last of its power to obliterate any who would attempt to plunder the secrets of its enigmatic makers.
For some fun trivia, that I may be spoiling ahead of time, we were really working on foreshadowing the land of Zereth Mortis and what it may look like. In the Sanctum of Domination, you may have noticed the raid boss called the Guardian of the First Ones. The environment that he’s in looks kinda “pulled” into that raid space, so if you look around Zereth Mortis close enough, you might be able to find the place where the Jailer ripped it out from. We were definitely excited to explore this direction as we gave hints to players along the way.
