A message is delivered to the Temple of the Violet Dawn, a summons, couched in the language of authority, of officialdom, but the instructions are plain enough: Choose a half-dozen from among your own, whose word the rest can trust. Witnesses. Come to the Constabulary's headquarters to identify a body.
At the Yard, officers wait to receive them. The witnesses are signed in, and guided into the the bowels of the Constabulary compound, to a doorway in a corridor, unremarkable, one door among others. This section of the corridor, though, is thick with the fragrance of incense, undoubtedly burned in an attempt to mask another, less pleasant odour; a clinging, sickly taint to the air that grows yet stronger when one of the officers opens the door for the witnesses to enter. Inside the room, which rapidly grows crowded as the members of the Dawn filter inside, the stench is almost overpowering; death, yes, and not recent, a miasma of rotten sweetness fit to turn the stomach. On a trestle in the middle of the room, covered in a plain white sheet, is what can only be the source of the smell. A body. One can tell from the shape of it, from the drape and fold of cloth covering it. Once can tell from the stink of it, a foulness that coats the nose and tongue as one breathes.
Once the witnesses are gathered, a Government official in sombre clothes, a perfumed kerchief tied over nose and mouth, moves to lift the sheet from the corpse's face.
What lies beneath may be a shock to those brought in to witness it. Mottled, bloated, almost unrecognisable - and yet, there are signs, recognisable features. The curve of that proud brow, that distinguished aquiline nose, still visible in profile, for all that once-ivory skin is discoloured and darkened, for all that dark eyes are now clouded and hidden beneath swollen lids, for all that cruel lips are puffy with decay. Most distinctive, though, most compelling, is that mark upon his brow; that black and twisted brand that identifies this decaying corpse as that of the man once known as Sin'Vraal.
Time enough is granted for the witnesses to identify the body, to confirm for themselves that yes, this is their teacher, guru, mentor; to satisfy themselves that this is no trick, no deception, but only ugly, undeniable truth; to confirm that he is most certainly deceased, and thus prey to the corruption and morbidity that takes all mortals upon death.
Time enough for them to appreciate the certainty of it.