In the west of Nex is the aptly titled Unknown, a vast dungeon near the foothills of the Shattered Range. The instruments of Nex's rise to power are often traced to this mysterious complex that predates even this ancient nation. Once closed by the wizard-king's order, the Council of Three and Nine is too preoccupied with national turmoil to maintain that ancient edict. Because of the boldness of the occasional adventurer, keen to consult the enchanted (but duplicitous) scrying pools within for power and fortune, the complex has been reopened.
Those intrepid souls aren't who reemerge, but instead a steadily increasing procession of individuals who refer to themselves as the Keys of Nex as they make their way to the capital. Navigating the city while bearing the guises of many whom Nex apparently killed, they speak in cryptic messages that only those with the most intimate knowledge of the archmage could know. They say Nex remains in his arcane refuge because his inevitable return will be Nex's fall. It's a hard notion for the Council to concede, but the cracks expanding through the nation make the portent difficult to deny.