Night, outside Malaibar Valley.
Roland and his companions left the valley beneath the stars and joined the expedition waiting outside.
Tatali and the others could not help asking, "Sir, why did you come out so soon this time?"
Roland said, "I've already found what I wanted. There's no reason to stay here any longer. Let's head back."
"All right."
Although somewhat surprised, everyone agreed and began packing their belongings.
Before long, they had cleared out the camp, mounted their pack beasts, and started home.
Along the way, Roland took out the bone tiles he had found in the valley and studied them again.
There were forty-three tiles in total, seemingly jumbled at first glance.
But according to the conventions of Seris poetry and the principles of arranging palindrome poems, the first and last lines could be identical, like a snake biting its own tail to form an endless cycle.
Roland spent several hours rearranging the words on the back of his pack beast, producing what he considered a reasonably satisfactory prophecy.
"Strife between gods and fiends brings opportunity; the mighty of all worlds seek it; everlasting life is nowhere found; only from the future may it be borrowed; when heaven's secrets emerge, traces of immortals appear; proof of immortality lies upon the legendary path, accompanied by a true dragon..."
The slip of paper Phinedites had left contained eight rows of seven squares, fifty-six in total. Removing the repeated first and last lines left seven times seven, or forty-nine. Removing the two repeated characters at the end of each line, while accounting for the reused character "ji," left forty-two distinct bone tiles.
Anyone else would have found it almost impossible to construct coherent sentences by randomly arranging those forty-two characters. Even the time dragon Phinedites herself probably could not have known