Lonely is the Night

A Creature of Emotion

As the crowd began fleeing in panic at the appearance of the fearsome creature, the party moved to do battle with it. Erevan immediately fired off an opening salvo of scorching ray while Aberchak flipped over one of the serving tables and took cover. Lethe ordered his skeletons to open fire on the creature while he cast a toll the dead. The creature then eerily dropped to all fours and bounded towards Erevan, effortlessly closing the distance to him before slashing him across the chest with its long spiked appendages. At this distance, Erevan realized that the creature's horrifying visage resembled a warped version of Aberchak's face. He attempted to run to safety, but as he fled the creature lifted one arm and fired the boney protrusion at him. The spike, which remained attached to the creature's arm by long tendrils, pierced through Erevan's shoulder and he began to be reeled back in. Erevan attempted to wither the tendrils away through a blight spell, which dealt a significant amount of damage but did not free him. Aberchak, under cover from Lethe's skeletons, leapt forward and severed the appendage holding Erevan in place with his falchion. The creature managed to score another strong hit on both of them before Erevan destroyed the creature using burning hands.
As the creature fell dead, the party heard a familiar voice behind them. They turned to see Ferdinand approaching, revealing that this was his manor of Here-and-Gone. Ferdinand seemed relatively nonplussed by the creature and more concerned that his dinner party had been ruined; he told the party that here in the unaligned Autumnal Demesnes strong emotions were dangerous, and could manifest themselves as horrific abominations. Aberchak, frustrated by being drawn to a different plane and upset over the loss of Precision, was responsible for the appearance of this creature: his loneliness made manifest. Ferdinand ordered several servants to begin cleaning the mess up, and soon the dinner party resumed. Ferdinand offered the group his manor to rest in, which was accepted.

Unpleasant Memories

While the others rested, Lethe walked around Here-and-Gone out of intrigue. Discovering Ferdinand's library, he sat down to peruse some of his tomes. While reading, Ferdinand approached Lethe and the two began to discuss their shared past. Lethe recalled the first time he cast magic, when he was forced to kill Ferdinand time and again by their shared master Nasos Melakis. Lethe asked Ferdinand if he resented being his familiar, and the owlfolk said that he did not mind. While he was in the Material Plane he possessed the mind of a simple owl and was not fully sapient, and he actually enjoyed the break away from his manor duties. Plus, Lethe was certainly a better master than Melakis.
Ferdinand said that he would escort the party to the Prince of Games' stronghold of Turney Castle, where they might find the wizard they were looking for. The two spoke for awhile more before Ferdinand retired to bed, leaving Lethe pondering whether he should release the owl from his service.

A City in the Sky

In the morning the party, accompanied by Ferdinand, set out from Here-and-Gone on their way to Turney Castle. Along the way they again noticed the strange inverted mountain floating in the air. They inquired with Ferdinand about it, who said that the island had simply appeared one day, but he had never had much interest in investigating it; strange such occurrences were not uncommon in Faerie. While he was unable to ascertain exactly how long ago it appeared, he guessed it was about three weeks ago in Mundane time. The party was very intrigued by this floating island however and chose to investigate it, floating up to it using Erevan's fly spell. As they flew over it, they were surprised to find a city atop the island. The city seemed to be mostly destroyed, with small fires burning throughout it. As the party looked closer they could see hastily-made defenses partitioning the city in places and signs of battle. Lethe was the first to recognize the architecture as Déonian and deduced that this must be the lost city of Teldyrn, which had mysteriously disappeared during the Ajokai invasion of Déon over 120 years ago. Erevan, while unfamiliar with the city itself, recognized the name as the hometown of his grandfather Erolith.
The party looked around for a safe place to land, and set down at the steps of a large temple. As they entered into it the found it to appear empty, with a large hole in the roof through which shone a crepuscular ray of moonlight. The party cautiously pushed further in, when they began to hear sounds of movement around them. Soon they found themselves surrounded by a large number of elves, all wearing blue-white robes and died-blue mohawk haircuts. After a brief, tense exchange, the party discovered that the inhabitants of this city believed that only three weeks had passed since they had transported to Faerie. Lethe revealed to the leader—a powerfully-built elven woman named Theliana—that it had in fact been 120 years in their native plane. Theliana instantly changed her demeanor and told the party to keep that to themselves as the inhabitants of the city were barely holding on as is, and that information might be too much for them to learn right now. Theliana agreed to take the party to speak to General Bardonne, the de facto leader of the city.

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Lonely is the Night"

---

Previous Chapter: Three Shall Be The Number

Next Chapter: There Wolf, There Castle

---

Ingame Date: Indeterminate
Real-Life Date: August 1, 2021
Protagonists:

• Lethe Argie
• Erevan
• Aberchak Haverdak

Featured NPCs:

• Ferdinand
• Theliana

Locations:

• Here-and-Gone
• Teldyrn