“MY manifestations on your planes, the Gods, have sent

you as one who would lately have returned to small lands

of dream which he had lost, yet who with greater freedom
has risen to greater and nobler desires and curiosities.
You wished to sail up golden Ukranos, to search out
forgotten ivory cities in orchid-heavy Kledd, and to reign
on the opal throne of Ilech-Vad, whose fabulous towers and
numberless domes rise mighty toward a single red star in a
firmament alien to your earth and to all matter.
Now, with the passing of two Gates, you wish loftier
things.
You would not flee like a child from a scene disliked to a
dream beloved, but would plunge like a man into that
last and inmost of secrets which lies behind all scenes and
dreams.
What you wish, I have found good; and I am ready to
grant that which I have granted eleven times only to
beings of your planes - five times only to those you call
men, or those resembling them.
I am ready to show you the Ultimate Mystery, to look on
which is to blast a feeble mind.
Yet before you gaze full at that last and first of secrets
you may still wield a free choice, and return if you will
through the two Gates with the Veil still unrent before
your eyes.”

-Karag’zhaz, The Pure One