As I approached the alleged location of the standing stones, I was attacked by a Thuggee assassin. My occult skills did not protect me from the trained killer. Within moments I had been strangled to death, and my body thrown off a cliff into the river below. The cold grip of winter came early that year, and my corpse  lay frozen in the riverbed, preserved. With the coming of the spring thaw, my  corpse washed up on a riverbank and the maggots and worms of the earth set about their grim task. But my  disembodied and deranged will was not powerless. Death had stripped me of the last of my sanity but with a wizard’s skill I took control of the very worms that gnawed and infested  my earthly shell.
Taking possession of my worm ridden corpse, I willed the body back into a semblance of life, animated by the terrible wriggling of a thousand carrion worms."

And so it was that Cyris Crane shambled back to Crane Manor, to settle his affairs, and take revenge upon those who had done him wrong.