I was in the reef talking to Variks, and after I backed out of his menu, he said something like "Are you going back to your ship? Where is it? Is it in good condition?". Why would he care about the location of my ship, or wether it was in good condition or not? Another thing I noticed is that when you need to get the queens cipher from the key chest in PoE for the elder cipher bounty, he says "Retrieve the Queens Cipher. She... no longer needs it." Im pretty sure the elder cipher is what makes a fallen into a kell, because when you need to kill bosses in PoE for 1000 points the bounty says that the cipher is watching and judging or something, so if the queen has a cipher, wouldnt that make her like a kell? And if she no longer needs it... maybe Variks is trying to take over the reef or become the kell of the house of judgement or any of the other houses? In the end of the cipher bounty, the bounties description is something along the lines of "I get the cipher, and you get a weapon", so this isnt an incredibly outlandish idea. Maybe im just looking into things too deeply and im compketely wrong and have made myself look like a fool, but it would be a cool plot twist and story piece for the game if it turns out he was indeed evil and became the kell of a powerful fallen house.