Three men are slashing through a landscape in search of great power.
On this spinning rock nothing carries power quite like gold.
During their expedition they encounter plenty of adversity, but the greatest of all arrives when all three slip unwittingly into a pool of quicksand.
Quickly they begin sinking into the mud, the powerful suction dragging them down into oblivion.
Two of the men escape to safe ground, leaving one behind.
Will they extend a branch to pull the trapped one to safety?
One bites and the other shovels more of that silt onto the sinking one, leaving him to drown.
We three are beings in search of great power and there are ten pounds of gold up for grabs that will give the most power to its possessor.
Our journey to this point has forced us to overcome many wild circumstances and no doubt there are wilder still to come.
And along the path we have, all three, fallen into a pit of quicksand.
It’s a perilous pool everyone finds themselves in from time to time, sucking you down into a choking pit of sludge.
Failure.
But…
Viper.
The Sandman.
Both of you have managed to escape from the quicksand, found the sanctuary on dry land as your success and status testifies.
Meanwhile, I’m still stranded in the swamp.
I can feel the quicksand pulling me deeper and deeper into its oblivion.
I can’t look to either of you for assistance. Roberts, you would sooner sink your teeth into me and fill me with your venom than offer me a hand.
The Sandman, you’re on the side shoveling more of this filth on top of me, your substance strangling me.
You both stand over me, willing me to drown.
But I am calm because I can see the branch that will help drag me out of this quicksand.
The OSW World Championship.
It is the same branch you both used to escape the sludge.
It is the same branch that three times I have reached for and three times I have failed to hold.
Once again, there it is, within my reach.
I know, as soon as I have it, I will escape the failure sucking me down.
In spite of all the snakes snapping at me from the fringes, despite this nightmare wrought of sand, I believe I will claim that branch and free myself from the quicksand burying me.
With success at last to wash away the contaminating silt, this crow will open and spread its wings to soar above the ground where my enemies wallow in the dirt.
Covered by ten pounds of gold the gilted corvid will give rise to a new sun so powerful it will sizzle the scales from the snake’s back and bring a desert’s drought to the Dream Demon’s reign of terror.
The shadows cast on this new day will be a Black Hand forcing The Viper and The Sandman into the pit where they will flounder in the quicksand of their own failure.
For the greater good.