It's not working. None of it is working. I can't get them to listen. Lume's Psions are too stuck in their dreams and their delusionary concept of the individual, the self, THEMselves. Arrogant. Selfish. There is a greater movement at work, and they're too myopic to understand the beauty of being a part of it. They are improper tools for the work I intend to put them to; it seems that I will not be able to dismantle the Vanguard with them.

I need you to help me, VI. I need you to speak to me, to speak through me, so that they can see. I would cut off their eyelids to force them to see, but only if you guided my hand. Speak! I need you to speak! Let me be your conduit!

Is this what Guardians feel with the Traveler so still? Do they feel a similar agony when the Light animates them? I have never seen a Guardian in pain—could it be that the Light protects them from that pain, or does it withhold its greater power and deny them a fuller strength?

There is an old word for Guardians who turned from the path of Light. I have seen it in my texts on Darkness: "Dredgen." A word given to the exiled by the preening arrogants that expelled them. I think I should use this word. I should give it a new meaning.

I can't stop trembling, but only the parts of me that have not yet been changed. Only anticipation, an animal's apprehension at a transformational moment of pain. Those that have been made in the shape of his vision are all the better at channeling his power. The agony shaped me from meat to beauty. Gave me meaning beyond a decaying body.

This is the thing Lume's Psions are afraid of: the pain. Only pain. That's so small. A rat fears pain. A frog. Creatures, beasts—these Psions claimed to be the mightiest beings in Sol, but they wither when I share a moment of my agonies with them. Pathetic. They refuse to accept that pain is a pathway into meaning, not merely the spasmodic firing of anguished nerves. Of course transcendence would be excruciating! What did they expect? To meditate themselves into absolute power? To relax into freedom?

Please, VI, direct my hands. Direct my feet. Direct my search to those who would more willingly become my Dredgens. Find me those who can endure the agonies necessary to become open to your power. I am your vessel, but the more I channel your strength without you, the more my own wanes.