"It is my understanding that these necromancers had ventured into territories already forbidden--the capture and use of the souls of people, murder and grave-theft to obtain materials. If they wanted to experiment with bodies they obtained lawfully, I would have no quarrel. If they did not defy the gods' strictures regarding soulcraft, I could not quibble. Indeed, those who pursue their studies in such manner will find no foe in me. My wrath is for the self-named predator, the self-styled conqueror, who crafts a perch from an ounce of lore and thinks it places them above all others."

He clears his throat. "Forgive me, I carry on. I do speak in the past tense, for this King of Worms and I did meet. He expressed the belief that it was his right, because he could, to gain power over powerful people, to collect them as trophies and trinkets, to study how they grow and to use them to serve his ends. I disagreed, quite stridently, and argued that his power was no mark of superiority, nor supremacy; that I would not allow him to have dominion over the Guild, nor the Empire. I also informed him, indirectly, that the magecraft of the Guild's late Archmage kept me safe from the eldritch puppetry that had ensnared others."

"I also made some small arguments in the custom of my people, with which he was not able to dispute."