Neolandus scrapes his throat. "Yes... Ahem."
"You sure you want me to share it now, after all that's already been told? It's a lot."
When Vencarlo keeps looking at him, Neolandus scrapes his throat again. "Alright... Ahem. Allow me to take a leap back in time, to the time Queen Ileosa rose to power after King Eodred's suspicious death..."
"When I confronted Queen Ileosa about King Eodred II’s death, her response was to send Red Mantis assassins after me — proof enough of guilt for me. Through a combination of luck and knowledge about the castle’s layout, I barely managed to escape with his life and went into hiding with my friend Salvator Scream in Old Korvosa."
"After I recovered from the attack but before Salvator handed me over to the Arkonas, I spent much of my time in Old Korvosa researching the situation by interviewing key people, poring through records in Endrin Academy, and piecing together information and rumors I heard to try to determine what caused Queen Ileosa’s sudden personality change from a petulant spoiled queen to a scheming murderous tyrant."
"My’s suspicions grew, but until Queen Ileosa’s first public appearance after the plague, I tempered my suspicions with hope. I knew that Queen Ileosa had been “borrowing” the treasury key to look through Korvosa’s holdings. I was also familiar with several old and obscure legends about the chambers below Castle Korvosa — chambers, it was whispered, that were old even when the Shoanti dwelt here, and that used to hide something of great power or evil. There was little more information to go on, but I did uncover mention in some documents from Korvosa’s earliest days of something called Midnight’s Teeth, and that these teeth were believed to be some sort of sacred relic of great import to the Shoanti. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the Shoanti kept these teeth in the chambers inside the pyramid that now serves as Castle Korvosa’s foundation."
"Further research uncovered an old legend that chilled my soul. Several hundred years ago, a powerful blue dragon and agent of Zon-Kuthon named Kazavon brought the orcs of Belkzen to their knees and began conquering the neighboring nations of Ustalav and Lastwall, until he was finally defeated and his remains scattered. Some of these remains, according to certain Zon-Kuthonic scriptures, contained fragments of Kazavon’s essence. One of these relics was the Fangs of Kazavon."
"Piecing together this evidence, I suspect that Midnight’s Teeth were none other than the Fangs of Kazavon. The description of the queen’s new crown sounds to me as if she now wears the Fangs of Kazavon on her brow, the implications of which troubles me greatly."
"I wasn’t able to gather much more information before the Arkonas took me, but I don’t suspect there was much more to learn. Hard facts about Midnight’s Teeth were sparse to begin with — Korvosa’s founders didn’t think it important to preserve much in the way of Shoanti culture. Yet there is still some hope. The Shoanti have very strong oral traditions, and if anyone knows the truth behind Midnight’s Teeth, that truth is doubtless hidden among their historians up in the Cinderlands."