"The long night of the north sea cannot bring me to heel; why should you be the one to master me?"

The nights had grown slightly cooler, and very much darker. The swamp had grown silent and still, as if the life of the swamp itself had gone into some kind of hibernation with the onset of winter. In the deepest recesses of night, where acid rain once fell, now acid snow drifted in silent, white clouds; the nightmares of a sickly disease dreamed by a dying world.

Shadow stood upon a dead tree, surveying the surrounding landscape, his senses open to everything, taking in the essence of the swamp itself, the essence of life and death lingering in the air itself. Shadow's eyes wandered out along the horizon and came to stop on the ruined, domed temple. A thin, green colored smoke drifted out of the giant opening in the roof. A sickly, green light radiated from within; and the moaning sounds of countless undead offered a greeting chorus to all those who came close to the temple. Shadow's eyes then drifted upwards to the sky, as he gazed not for the first time at the alien stars above. He wondered not for the first time if he often gazed at the stars of Ai. Then he took a deep breath.