Exton

The elementals have been giving me a wide berth for the half of a day. This wretched poison defies analysis. Granted, I do not have the most sophisticated equipment here - no scanning electron microscope, no gas chromatograph and no mass spectrometer. Still, I am hardly a novice, either.

I believe that I have reached the limits of what I can do with the toxin, and now I must have that accursed flower. But I am loath to waste time, so I continue to work with the damnable stuff, muttering to myself under my breath. I am, in effect, arguing with myself - and what is worse, I am losing.

Star's utterance continues to plague me. "The blood of the first people." Though it is generally accepted that the Fertile Crescent may have been the first sign of what we have come to refer to as "civilization" - ha! - all peoples have, at one time or another, referred to themselves in the same or a similar fashion. It is a function of man's vanity that he must ever consider himself to be better than his neighbor.

My thoughts chase each other round and round, like a hamster in a wheel, and make essentially the same progress.

I will tear the secret from this pestilential riddle, or die trying.