To Rob Death's Dominion

It is said that in a golden age long ago we of the world were not yet beset by uncertainty and doubt. The exalted beings who lived in those days knew their own worth, saw their own meaning. For held in the center of the world was the cintamani, a brilliant jewel of red and black and orange. It was the answer to all the sorrows of the world, the key that allowed desire free of suffering. It is the very jewel that proved that existence was worthwhile; in its light was illuminated a virtue and purpose within us each. It was made available to all, there in its temple in its shining city, and the miracle of that age was that none in the world sought to claim it for their own.

And then, it is said, the Riders of the Bleak Academy, the denizens of the Void who seek to bring to all things an ending, rushed in without warning, with Death at their head. They seized it for themselves, the cintamani, and brought that age to an end. And ever since, we have never been free of cruelty, of pain, of sorrow.

Some say, of course, that it was the other way around: that we of the world stole the cintamani from the Void in the first place, and in doing so committed the most monstrous of crimes. That its removal from the world was, in fact, an act of justice. (Justice tends to be, after all, a matter of perspective.)

And some say that the cintamani was a recent loss, that it was held within the Houses of the Sun, and it was for this very stone that the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy killed Jade Irinka, his love, and its absence is what brought the Outside crashing upon Creation.

Regardless, to reclaim it now would be an impossible feat, the province of fools and the mad.

And yet, it is the nature of thieves to never be satisfied with what they have, to always set their sights on greater treasures.

Is it so surprising that thieves of a certain caliber would come to seek a treasure beyond any known to Earth?