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Eventually that one entered the cave and emerged in a grotto, starving, but for much more than food, though so weak that that one could barely flop up onto the rocky floor. A foul stench hung thickly in the shadows of the cavern. A globe of light dispelled the shadows and that one looked away, expecting to be dazzled by a king’s ransom in soulgems and gold, but when that one raised his head and observed the details of the cavern, that one found only the rotting remains and cartilaginous frames of dead Sload. K’tala reached into one of the fresher corpses, feeling inside the head for the soft and squishy mnemocrypt. That one closed that one’s eyes and muttered a cantrip, speaking to the memories, swimming through them, being enclosed and sustained by them like placenta. Slow, painful. Dying. Realisation. Soulsnare. Poison. Now K’tala understood the absence of living parasites in the pool and the soul merchant’s near limitless wealth as a wave of nausea swept through that one’s body and that one collapsed onto the floor. That one’s body gurgled in agony as that one’s soul began slipping free only to became happily entangled within a web of magick, strung along on a path made by a rosary of glittering soulgems and held captive by a beatific vision of wealth.

So concludes this one’s tale. Fitting punishment indeed for such hotheadedness. Take heed of this story, little ones, and respect your biggers, so that one day you too might become old enough to have a clutch of young grubs to feast on the accretions on the underside of your belly.