First, no Mason will know rest until we have justice for the violation of the Sanctum Sanctorum. As the Familiaris customarily tasked with investigating crimes, and as companion to the Porphyrogene, I hold the problem to be my personal responsibility. And the exposure of my own name as vicarius of the IMPERIUM MASONICUM, should dominus Jehovah delay their ascension, makes the problem more irrevocably mine. Never again will I be able to stroll through empty alleys without a wall of guards between myself and my fellow human beings; nor meet another’s eyes and not read in their thoughts: “Martin may someday be Emperor.” I support the ancient custom that the throne should generally not pass to a porphyrogene, and the wise law which prohibits discussion of the Imperator Destinatus. Public knowledge of the succession leads to envy, plots, defamation, sycophancy, murder, and, most dangerous, to the successor knowing they are the successor. As Machiavelli observed, Rome showed, tyrant after tyrant, how those reared in palatine luxury, expecting to be master of the world, basely abused the godlike authority that fell to them unearned, while those promoted through merit—Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius—made judicious use of the Imperium of which they considered themselves, not owners, but custodians. It is not power that corrupts, but the belief that it is yours. I think I will never believe that any privilege I enjoy—whether Caesar’s trust or the Throne—is mine—yet, when I face a mirror now, I see the shadows of Caligula and Commodus, and doubt myself. Do I, tasting IMPERIUM before me, have the strength to still commit myself to making dominus Jehovah to take the Throne from me? Or will I forget the purpose which Cornel MASON laid upon me those many years ago, commanding that, while my bas’sibs might pursue the Guildbreakers’ customary paths in the Senate and high politics, I would instead dedicate myself to a single more important task: “Make my son a Mason,” which I now understand as “Make my son a MASON.” I must not fail, but if I do fail, it must not be because I let myself desire the power which never should be mine, more so now that the corrupting knowledge that I might receive it throws my fitness in doubt. I do not doubt dominus Jehovah’s fitness. They are incorruptible. I know therefore that MASON is right to suspend custom and pass the IMPERIUM to this Porphyrogene. But if I did not know dominus Jehovah so personally, I too would likely doubt, and in my heart of hearts think hard on the words of Ojiro Cardigan Sniper. This doubt of the successor’s fitness, sown in our Empire by these vandals, is food for chaos. And the Sanctum’s violators have not only harmed the present generation. The past suffers as well, for MASON’s vaults contained codices, papyri, tablets in stone and clay, preserved since the births of writing and the Empire; the flammable are ashes now, the enduring scarred. And the future suffers too, for with the Sanctum’s fall, henceforth, until a stronger age devises one, there is now no safe place in this world. I must bring justice.