"Find and steal the dwarven boon Whelm, and he will come after you.” Blissa’s instructions had been very clear. “Use the boon to defeat him, put this gem in his mouth, sow it shut and bring his corpse back to me.”
"Oh...the he-she was pleasant enough to look at, I suppose. Might have been fun, if a bit confusing figuring out what to do with all the extra bits she'd bring into the mix."
"I fed you people I thought deserved it. But, the...the look in their face when you devoured their souls. The sounds they made when they met their fate as your meal...it was too much...too much to bear."
The device was a puzzle box of sorts, with various colored tiles on its outer surface, and a unique magical symbol inlaid with gold on each individual tile.
"You are forgiven, my child. My virgin-turned-matron. You loved Hazel like a child from your very womb. She lived a powerful life and was loved. Now let her go."
"I've restored deserts back into grassy plains. Brought forests back from human clear-cutting. I've restored areas burned down by volcanic eruptions. And now...I aim to heal the wound this war will put on our world."
"You are my friend, and I depend on you unlike any other person on all of Kempin. And I depend on you never so much, than when we are in the midst of some right gory carnage."
The Emperor gave a slight bow of his head and put his hand on the side of the wooden crate. "And you are a fierce defender of your King. A man of honor. A man once broken, and now restored."
Hazel looked closer at this figure that stood before her. His skin was grey and split with rot. Necrotic boils and swellings seeped black fluid, and maggots wriggled from holes in his flesh, fell, and formed growing piles around his feet.