Reconstruction number seven. From the reports of Godfather Morlock. The results of the tests can’t be argued with. We’ve inherited the curse of the founders. They lost their shadows when they started using the ceremonies of time, and we’ve got the same problem. The experiment I’ve been running is quite simple. In the laboratory, I set a hamster running inside its wheel, then lock the wheel inside a dynamic time loop. As a result, each turn of the wheel takes the hamster back in time to a point just before it began taking the step, using the techniques of the Grandfather and his followers. Observation shows that at around three-thousand turns of the wheel, the hamster’s shadow shows serious signs of degredation. At exactly nine-thosuand-eight-hundred-and-five turns, the shadow dissipates altogether, leaving the hamster as one of the shadowless. Very few of our agents have taken more than a dozen or so long-range journeys through time, of course, but let’s remember that our entire Empire is sealed inside an eleven-day time-loop. The point is that each eleven-day cycle reduces us, and soon the signs will begin to show. Like the hamster in its wheel, we’re damning ourselves to be among the shadowless, and therefore unarmed. [Pause.] There is a solution, however. It’s theoretically possible to transplant our shadows from donors within the House, just as the founders did. Unfortunately, this would mean surgically removing the spirits of family members. This isn’t something we should make public knowledge, I feel, although I’m continuing my own line of research into the matter. Until then, we just have to accept it. Our very proximity to the spirits will one day destroy us. Or, at the very least, wipe our souls clean.