“Bring me another,” Tarâkêl the Incursor said to his aide, who hurried away promptly.

Still savouring his recent kill, the high lord deemed the ritual he had just performed one of his best in months.

He took a sip of soup from a modest mudware bowl and watched the servants clean the blood and entrails from the altar across the chamber. Although he was one of the Great Incursors, he groomed a humble image. The choice of crockery was one of its the more subtle hints.

Right on time, when the servants had left along with their cleaning utensils, his aide returned with another gaunt creature in tow.

A kick to the back of their knees forced the pale-skinned humanoid to the ground.

“What is that,” Tarâkêl asked, slowly circling the naked, trembling being.

“We encountered their kind in the far reaches of the Veil, my lord,” his aide explained. “As for what species—were not certain.”

Tarâkêl nodded curiously. “Interesting. Almost like a Lukkut… perhaps a Dranari from its physique.”

“Yes, my lord, but internally quite different. We have captured thirty-one, travelling in primitive spacecraft,” his aide elaborated.

The high lord studied the alien. It was shaking, either from fear or cold. Maybe both.

Secretions oozed from its nostrils and eyes. A common reaction Tarâkêl observed with beings put in front of him. Meeting a new species was always the most instructive.

It muttered in a language Tarâkêl had no intention of deciphering, but he could sense it’s meaning quite clearly.

He reached out and placed a hand upon its head where it grew short, dark hair.

With the touch the creatures ending revealed itself. Fragmented, directionless.

A sequence of images flickered before Tarâkêl’s inner eye, until he found what he was looking for: the being’s last flame.

It lacked a clear shape, though, swaying chaotically in the way entropy intended. It was time to adjust it.

“You persist without awareness,” Tarâkêl said quietly, letting the rumble of his voice carry the meaning rather than the words itself. The being wouldn’t understand the ancient dialect anyway.

“Your kind expands too quickly. Without completion.”

The alien screamed as the high lord dragged it over to the altar.

“A pity, that you cannot grasp the meaning of cosmic entropy. Let’s relieve you of this burden, then.”

Their screams turned from panic to resistance and finally into something closer to resolve.

Tarâkêl performed his work carefully. Doing what was necessary to mould the flame before it would fade.

The high lord paused. He could extend the suffering. Or refine the flame further and trying to draw something greater from the inner chaos. But that would have been indulgence.

“No,” he murmured to himself. “Clarity is sufficient.”

Tarâkêl felt the creatures mind align with his adjustments while fear gave way to something quieter. He released it, and the flame went out.

Silence returned to the chamber.

Dark blood traced across his hands and his robes as he stepped back from the altar, observing the still form.

He remained still for a moment, too.

Witnessing the fading of a flame was exhilarating. He let it pass. The gift of clarity weighed more than pleasure.

Before long, even his name would be relinquished, elevating him into entropy’s inner circle, whatever blessings or curses it might entail.

Tarâkêl was certain: it was demanded.

He turned away.

Another one was needed.