Ariel's murder drover her beloved Nupraptor, the Guardian of the Mind, insane with grief. In his madness he unleashed a telepathic shockwave throughout the Circle, and tainted the remaining guardians with his derangment. Corrupted the sorcerers turned their powers to dark and poisonous purposes, and abandonded their guardianship of the Pillars. Symbiotically bound to the Guardians who served them, the Pillars absorbed the sorceres' corruption and fell into decay.
Until the balance can be restored, Ariel is fated to be bound eternally to the Pillars as a disembodied specter. She failed to pursuade her successor, Kain , to sacrifice himself in order to heal the Pillars. His refusal condemned the Pillars to an eternal stasis of near-collapse, and damned Ariel to ceacelessly haunt the dilapidated Pillars she once served. Unless the Balance is restored, she will never be released.