(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

He gazed at me for a long moment, then nodded in the satisfaction of a
mentor who has done his duty. "You have come to know the First Circle of
Zerthimon. You not only see the words of Zerthimon, you have come to
know them." Dak'kon held up the Circle and hooked his fingers around the
edges. There was a click, and the plates of the Circle slid into a new
configuration. He reversed the motion as before, sealing the stone. "Know
the Second Circle of Zerthimon is open to you. Study it, then I will hear your
words."
As before, I slid the plates into the configuration Dak'kon showed me, and a
new ring was revealed. The ring carried the same script as I read before,
with the same geometries...
"Know that flesh cannot mark steel. Know that steel may mark flesh. In
knowing this, Zerthimon became free."
"Know that the tentacled ones were of flesh. They relied on the flesh and
used it as tools for their will. One of the places where flesh served their will
was the Fields of Husks on the False Worlds of the illithids."
"The Fields were where the bodies of the People were cast after the illithids
had consumed their brains. When the brain had been devoured, the husks
came to be fertilizer to grow the poison-stemmed grasses of the illithids.
Zerthimon worked the Fields with no knowing of himself or what he had
become. He was a tool of flesh, and the flesh was content."
"It was upon these Fields that Zerthimon came to know the scripture of
steel. During one of the turnings, as Zerthimon tilled the Fields with his
hands, he came across a husk whose brain remained within it. It had not
been used as food. Yet it was dead."
"The thought that one of the husks had died a death without serving as food
for the illithids was a thought Zerthimon had difficulty understanding. From
that thought, came a desire to know what had happened to the husk."
"Embedded in the skull of the husk was a steel blade. It had pierced the
bone. Zerthimon realized that was what had killed the husk. The steel had
marked the flesh, but the flesh had not marked the steel."
"Zerthimon took the blade and studied its surface. In it, he saw his
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