A mere flash in the pan from the perspective of an Immortal, perhaps. On
the other hand, to paraphrase an old poet, might the Immortals possess
the gift of knowing eternity in each hour? The mysteries of Divinity I
cannot claim to comprehend.

Having reached the 100th year of my life as an Achaean, I have just a
few things I would like to say. I have walked this land for a century,
wearing the shoes of a scholar, an adventurer, a teacher, a city
minister, a politician, a guildleader, a wife, a mother, a warrior, a
merchant, more. Many of you have touched my life and enriched it, and I
wish to thank you. (And some of you have just been a pain in my ass,
life's not perfect, etc! I'm sure I've been a bigger pain to many.)

During the War for the Child shortly before it, thank you to all those
who came together from the various cities (and one village! and the
cityless too) to the aid of the innocent Divine Child. It was an honor
to campaign alongside all of you, to see former hostilities and distrust
cast aside for a better cause. While (and I can only understate this) it
was not the most ideal of circumstances, my heart was glad to battle
along such courageous, resourceful and worthy companions.

I have lived over thirty years as a very public figure. Recently, I have
retired from my positions of Overseer of Ashtan and Demiurge of the
Occultists, and retreated into solitary meditation. While I will not
speak of all I have learned in that meditation, I will answer those who
have asked: I am not departing.

And my loyalties stand as firm as ever: when my Divine Matron, the
Occultists, or Ashtan calls, I shall answer with all my strength. Yet,
the one who remains will be different from the one you once knew. A
hundred years is a long time as mortals count it, but I am born Tsol'aa,
eldest and longest lived of the mortal races, and I am only stepping out
of my adolescence.

There is much to learn, still.

Shakti Devi.

"Can we retrain ourselves at this late date to become finders of hidden
treasure? And by what technique, seeing that it is precisely technique
which has betrayed us? Derangement of the senses, insurrection, piety,
poetry? _Knowing how_ is a cheap mountebank's trick. But _knowing what_
might be like divine self-knowledge -- it might create ex nihilo."

Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Mayan, in the year 326 AF.