My father’s mother was the biggest hoarder I ever came across.
While most people hold vague recollections of their grandparents owing to their warm smiles, distinctive perfumes, or generous offerings, mine stays fresh in my memory for one reason and one reason only – the fact you couldn’t move around her joint for shit.
The old girl was fucking terrible for it. If she saw something she liked, she had to have it, and once she had it? She wasn’t ever letting that shit go.
She’d keep newspapers, books, clothes. Hell – she’d even stockpile plastic bags, filled to the brim with receipts she’d amassed since she was old enough to pay her own way in the world.
Despite all this awful clutter, there was one particular item that escaped gran her entire life.
One little keepsake, above all else, that she desired more than any other.
You see gran’s most prized possessions were these crystalline goblets. Originally, the tumblers had been sold as a set of five, but over the years, as they were passed through different hands, they had become lost in circulation. Granny dearest had spent the best part of her days searching the land high and low for these glasses, and in four of the five cases she had been successful in her endeavours.
But – no matter how hard she sought out the fifth – it continued to evade her; even up to her death itself.
Just like my great grandmother, Sigil, you too have an unhealthy obsession with collecting. Like her, you have spent the greater part of your natural life consumed by the preoccupation of perception and that around you.
A material boy in a material world – whatever that realm might be.
Upon your waist sits an infinite haversack; a limitless carryall, teeming with baubles, trinkets, and knickknacks that you have amassed on your pursuit across the planes.
And amongst those little nest eggs lie your four most treasured curios, tucked away safe and sound in all their translucent glory, waiting patiently to be reunited with their long lost confidant.
It is a souvenir that has eluded you since the inception of Old School Wrestling, isn’t it? Since the first moment your portal opened at the very brink of the Slaughterhouse and spat you out between these four walls.
And no matter how hard you have searched, no matter how hard you have looked in earnest for it, that precious fifth crystal continues to sidestep your advances – refusing to become part of your collection.
It drove my grandmama to her end, Sigil; it will surely drive you to yours.
You see, Realm Walker, Death is neither a possession nor component to be found. When it is ready, it will seek out and take possession of whomever it so chooses.
It will capture, conquer and occupy your mortal soul, and it will be you – not He – that becomes part of a collection.
His collection.
And if you don’t believe me, just look to the skies above and you will soon know that the Rain is coming.
It’s coming for us all.
So it is written.
And so it shall come to pass.