Before leaving the Archive, Fable reminded Styigan that the two of them still needed to speak about what he had seen when he entered her mind.
She asked if they could go somewhere private.
Caelivyn immediately volunteered to help.
Styigan barely managed to say, “No, wait—” before he and Fable disappeared.
The two found themselves trapped inside an enormous Maze of twisting staircases, platforms, and doors. Styigan sighed and explained that they would simply have to wait for Caelivyn to lose concentration before they could return.
With nowhere else to go, Fable asked him about the inverted Philosopher’s Stone formula carved across her back.
Styigan explained that if the Philosopher’s Stone represented Creation and Immortality, then its inverse represented the power of the Qlippoth: Death and Destruction in their most potent and primordial forms.
The ritual was the source of Fable’s Sanguinemancy and Necromancy.
Unlike the innate magic of a Sorcerer, however, the power inside Fable appeared to have been placed there through ritual. It was immensely powerful, but potentially finite.
Fable realized that someday she might run out.
Styigan did not know what would happen to her if she did.
More troubling was the purpose of the ritual itself.
Fable had not simply been affected by the inverted formula.
She had been its focus.
Octavian had used his own daughter as the Stone, sealing an enormous concentration of destructive magic inside her body. Styigan could not say exactly what Octavian had intended to do with that power, but whatever the final stage of the ritual had been, he doubted it ended well for Fable.
He suspected Octavian eventually intended to kill his daughter and unleash whatever he had spent years storing inside her.
Styigan was more surprised that Fable had survived the process at all. He wondered how her soul had sustained so much destructive energy without becoming corrupted.
Fable reminded him that she was a vampire and did not think she had a soul.
Styigan looked her up and down.
“Oh. That would explain the pale skin, huh.”
Still, he doubted she was correct.
His earliest attempts at creating the Philosopher’s Stone had failed because there had been nothing capable of properly binding the magic. Without something to anchor it, the vessel was destroyed.
Fable was still alive.
Whatever vampires believed about themselves, Styigan suspected there had to be something inside her functioning very much like a soul.
Left waiting for Caelivyn’s Maze to end, the two eventually began making awkward small talk.
Fable learned that despite serving as the Archive’s guardian, Styigan had not actually read most of its books. Between cataloguing the collection, maintaining its protections, and fighting off generations of looters, he simply did not have the time.
Fable questioned the value of protecting so much knowledge only to leave it unread and forgotten.
She proposed a trade.
If Styigan restored the contents of Wix’s Lexicon of Rune Scribing, Fable would keep the existence and location of the Archive secret.
Styigan found the bargain absurd. Fable was essentially asking him to reward her for agreeing not to tell anyone else about the library she had just broken into.
Unfortunately, the party already knew where the Archive was.
He reluctantly agreed.
Eventually Caelivyn’s concentration ended and the two returned to the library.
As the party prepared to leave, another enormous pile of letters suddenly appeared inside Caelivyn’s chamber. Pleas for assistance from his various Warlocks spilled across the floor.
Styigan sighed and immediately began sorting them.
He read roughly the first line of each letter, burned most of them, and placed approximately one in every ten on Caelivyn’s desk for the Archfey to presumably ignore himself.
Caelivyn announced that it was probably time he got back to work.
Then, as the party began walking away, he suddenly remembered something.
He called after Fern and asked whether his father intended to pay the thousand years of allowance he was owed.
Fern immediately continued toward the exit.
Behzad stared after him.
“You’re just going to leave?”
Fern looked back.
“Do you have a thousand years worth of gold?”
Behzad considered the question.
The rest of the party followed Fern in haste.
Behind them, Caelivyn continued calling after him.
“Dad?”
“Dad?”
“I’m not getting my allowance, am I?”
Back in Dunedrift, the party traveled to the local plague hospital to investigate another of Trinity’s requests.
There they found Father Windsor Bonebeam, already back at work helping the sick after the destruction in the Shanty Town.
Windsor explained that during the Dragon Attack, the dragon appeared to have struck the Necropolis. Undead began pouring from one of its ancient tombs faster than the overwhelmed city guard could contain them.
The tomb was eventually sealed again, but not before numerous guards and civilians had been exposed.
Now many of them had contracted a disease known as the Rot.
The infection appeared resistant to ordinary magical treatment. Citizens who had been bitten or scratched by the undead suffered the worst symptoms, while guards who had merely been splattered with their blood showed milder cases.
Windsor directed the party toward Dunedrift’s plague doctor, Corvus Cleaver.
Behzad found Cleaver among the patients.
The doctor smelled the air around him.
He asked Behzad how long it had been since he died.
Behzad demanded to know how Corvus could possibly know that he had been resurrected.
Corvus explained that the undead had a very distinct scent.
He then noticed Fable examining several of the infected citizens and asked Behzad if he could keep his “pet ghoul” away from the patients.
When Nys approached, Corvus greeted her much differently.
He called her one of his “fellow Knights.”
Nys raised an eyebrow and asked if he was Shadar-kai.
Corvus explained that he had never been granted such an honor. He was merely a Ravenknight, one of the Raven Queen’s disciples who hunted undead and helped communities recover from curses and infestations.
He had heard of someone who might possess a cure for the Rot.
A necromancer named Vali Takala lived at the Hallowed Falls, roughly a day’s journey away near Bradford.
Corvus asked Nys if she would seek him out in service of the Lady.
Nys agreed.
The party began the long journey toward Bradford.
Behzad passed the time composing a mediocre travel song on his banjo while Fern kept watch along the road.
Nys and Fable spoke about what had happened in the Archive.
Fable told her what Styigan had revealed about Octavian’s ritual and the power sealed inside her.
Nys reassured her that whatever her father had intended, Fable would never become like him.
Toward the end of the journey, Fern spotted twelve mounted knights in plate armor traveling across the road beneath the banners of a noble house.
The party pulled aside.
Their leader introduced himself as Lord Reginald Sarradrasford of the Misty Cliffs.
Mistaking the party for local citizens, Reginald attempted to reassure them that he was traveling to Bradford to contest his brother’s coronation and ensure that the traditional Tanistry would be properly carried out.
Then Behzad made himself known.
Reginald noticed the markings of Wolford upon his armor and immediately became flustered, apologizing for having mistaken the famous Bernard Alltassal for one of his common country bastards.
Reginald invited Behzad to visit him in the Misty Cliffs so that the two might discuss a possible political alignment between Wolford and his territory.
Behzad agreed.
The two parties continued on their journeys.
Dusk was beginning to settle when the party finally reached the Hallowed Falls.
The area was breathtaking.
Two enormous waterfalls poured from the mountains beside an old house perched above the valley. The water plunged nearly one hundred feet into the shallow, jagged basin below before feeding the Jade River, which stretched through Bradford and eventually toward Dunedrift.
Above the drop was a secluded beach and swimming hole fed by the waterfalls. A heavy rope net had been strung across the water to prevent swimmers from being swept over the edge.
Four upscale cabins sat along the beach.
All were empty.
The main road narrowed into a treacherous path of barely connected rocky pillars leading toward the house.
Signs had been posted everywhere.
NO SOLICITATIONS!
NO COLLEGE INQUIRIES!
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CABIN AFTER DARK!
NO REFUNDS!
The party decided not to risk taking their cart across the narrow road.
It was a rental, after all.
They continued on foot.
The house appeared to serve as a welcome center for the cabins. Prices beside the door advertised rooms for one gold per night, three gold for five days, or five gold for a full ten-day.
Considering that a single gold represented roughly a ten-day’s wages for a common laborer, Hallowed Falls had clearly been designed as an exclusive retreat for Bradford’s wealthy merchant class.
A hooded man answered the door.
The party explained that they had come looking for a cure for the Rot.
He immediately asked if they were paying cash.
Fern hesitated.
“Yes?”
The door swung open.
Vali Takala, a blond human Wizard, welcomed them into his sitting room.
Antique furniture filled the interior. A large portrait showed Vali holding a baby Kenku, while the open kitchen beyond looked more like an alchemy laboratory than somewhere food was prepared.
The building itself was beginning to fall apart.
The ceiling beams needed repair. Shingles were missing from the roof. His ingredient shelves were poorly stocked.
Vali’s business had clearly seen better days.
He immediately began preparing the medicine.
Water from the Falls.
Humanoid blood.
Salt.
Heartwood.
Doompetal.
And finally, consecrated silver.
Vali explained that his boy was an adventurer himself, so he was willing to give them a bulk rate of only one hundred gold per vial.
The hospital needed twenty-four doses.
Two thousand four hundred gold.
“A steal.”
The party told him they could not possibly afford it.
Vali balked.
Did they have any idea what silver cost in this economy?
Fable clenched her fist and reminded him that people were dying.
Vali replied that he would be dead and homeless if he simply gave strangers thousands of gold worth of consecrated silver and rare herbs.
Behzad offered to repair his roof in exchange.
Vali looked upward.
For two thousand gold, he explained, he could rebuild the entire upper floor.
Nys asked if there was any adventuring work they could do for him instead.
Vali sighed.
They were lucky his son was away adventuring, because the boy probably would have simply given them the potions.
He looked toward the portrait.
His rental business had collapsed because a banshee known locally as the White Lady had begun appearing near the top of the Falls every night, crying and screaming until no sane visitor wanted to remain.
If the party removed her, Vali supposed he could afford to give them the medicine in exchange.
They agreed.
Fern contributed ninety-eight gold.
Fable surrendered a +1 longsword to help cover the cost of the materials.
The party then asked whether they could rent one of Vali’s cabins for the night.
He charged them the full one-gold rental fee.
Vali handed them the key to Cabin #1: The Honeymoon Suite.
Despite the dust, the cabin was genuinely luxurious.
A screened porch overlooked the Falls. Inside was a granite-countered kitchen, a welcome basket containing wine, a sitting room filled with rocking chairs, a large stone fireplace, and an owlbear-skin rug.
Hooded lanterns hung throughout the building.
Two enormous bedrooms contained dragonborn-king-sized beds and marble bathrooms with full-sized tubs surrounded almost entirely by glass, offering little privacy but incredible views of the mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls.
Behzad found mints waiting on his pillows.
Fable’s bed had been covered in dead rose petals alongside a card congratulating her on her marriage and recommending nearby art galleries, restaurants, and romantic activities throughout Bradford.
As night settled over the mountains, Nys and Fern sat together on the porch beneath the stars.
The constant hum of the waterfalls filled the valley.
Fern remarked that Hallowed Falls might somehow be even more peaceful and beautiful than the Vaelwood.
A woman screamed.
Her cries echoed across the water.
Fern explained what he knew about banshees.
Among Elves, banshees were traditionally the souls of women whose deaths left them unable to release their attachment to those they loved. Some had been murdered by their lovers. Others had died before those they cared for and simply could not separate themselves enough to enter their next life.
Their despair could spread.
In the Vaelwood, the cries of a single banshee had sometimes caused waves of suicide throughout the surrounding forest.
Behzad remarked that Elven adaptation magic was horrifying if the despair of one undead woman could ripple through an entire community.
Nys thought back to Styigan.
If the sorrow of one Elf could spread like that, she wondered what might have happened if the God of Elves himself had fallen deeply enough into despair.
The party prepared themselves.
Nys drained the wax from several hooded lanterns and used it to deafen the group against the White Lady’s cries.
They crossed beneath the waterfall and discovered a concealed cave hidden behind the curtain of water.
The moment they entered, each member of the party found themselves somewhere else.
Fable opened her eyes inside Octavian’s manor.
Her scars were gone.
She had never been locked away.
Her father was there.
Octavian had recently butchered a group of adventurers and told his daughter to feed.
Fable did.
As she ate, however, she could hear a familiar conversation somewhere behind the kitchen door.
Nys.
The words grew clearer whenever Fable moved toward them.
Octavian told her to sit down.
She obeyed.
The more she ate, the quieter Nys became.
Octavian asked Fable to stay with him.
They could walk around the castle grounds together.
She could remain there and live the life she had always wanted.
Fable looked at the thing wearing her father’s face.
If this was what it believed she wanted, it was mistaken.
She stood and walked through the door.
The manor disappeared.
Behzad opened his eyes in Moressley.
But the Lord’s Alliance had never arrived to conquer Vlorfa.
Instead, the Warduke of Rosenhall had come to finally grant Vlorfa its feudal contract and recognize it as the Fourth Dukedom.
The reason was Behzad himself.
His heroism and service as a knight of the Three Eyes of Bahamut had finally earned his homeland the recognition it deserved.
His father stood proudly beside him.
Once everything was settled, he intended to have Behzad assume the title of Duke in his place.
The Warduke smiled.
Perhaps even Emperor lay in Behzad’s future.
All he needed to do was sign the document.
Someone began pounding against the doors of the great hall.
Fern.
“It’s not real!”
It was the same warning Fern had given Behzad when he first encountered the statue of Tharizdun in Azmar.
Behzad became furious.
“CORELLON, STOP INTERFERING!”
He signed the document.
The great hall vanished.
Behzad found himself stepping over the edge of Hallowed Falls.
He plummeted toward the jagged rocks below.
Fern opened his eyes in the Feywild.
He was Corellon.
Standing before him was his daughter.
Velatha.
Corellon was preparing to leave the Feywild to confront Tharizdun and intended to entrust his responsibilities to Velatha in his absence.
She was afraid.
“What if I fail?”
Corellon reassured her.
“There’s no one else I would trust with this duty.”
Velatha begged him not to go.
Tharizdun had killed too many gods already. He was not strong enough to risk himself against Tharizdun, especially not for the benefit of what she dismissed as the “lesser races.”
Corellon refused.
His responsibility did not extend only to the Elves.
Humans, Dwarves, Beastfolk, and the other peoples of the world were capable of great things and deserved protection no less than his own children.
If Tharizdun threatened them, then defending them was his duty.
Velatha continued begging her father to stay.
Fern knew what happened next.
He knew what Velatha would eventually become.
He knew what would happen if Corellon left the Feywild in her care.
And he understood that to escape the illusion, he would have to make the choice again.
Fern reached for the Thorncrown.
Its thorns drove into his hands as he lifted it.
Blood poured across his palms.
He placed the crown upon Velatha’s head.
Corellon’s blood ran from the thorns and streaked down his daughter’s face.
Velatha smiled.
The blood of Corellon had ordained her.
Fern left the Feywild in her care once again.
Nys opened her eyes at home in the Charmed Cove.
She was alive.
Her armor was being adjusted for a new assignment at the docks.
Her husband, Taurion, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her along the jaw.
He asked if she would take the night off and stay home with him.
Nys laughed and told him she could not.
Taurion scoffed.
“How long have you been on the force? Three hundred years? And you’ve taken what? Maybe a week of total time off?”
He told her the new assignment was bullshit.
They were punishing her.
She should fight it.
Nys said she could not. It was her duty, and perhaps she had turned down too many promotions over the years.
Taurion told her she should quit instead.
They could move in with her father.
He did not care.
He simply did not want her going back out there.
“I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
Nys laughed softly.
He had always worried too much.
He had been a complete wreck when she gave birth.
Taurion shook his head.
“There was more blood than one of your crime scenes.”
Nys smiled.
She cupped her husband’s cheek and leaned forward to kiss him.
She blinked.
Rain poured around her.
She was standing alone at the docks.
Her hand remained outstretched, holding a face that was no longer there.
Across the street, a figure watched her from an alley.
The Mincer.
Their eyes met.
He disappeared into the shadows.
Nys ran after him.
She shouted for him to halt and turned the corner into the alley.
The Mincer was gone.
Sindatari stood in his place.
He reached forward and touched her forehead.
“Wake up.”
Nys jolted back into reality with her own dagger pressed against the scar where the Mincer had once struck her.
Then she heard someone falling.
Nys rushed from beneath the waterfall just in time to see Behzad plummeting toward the jagged basin below.
At the last possible moment, his Draconic Flight erupted.
Behzad caught himself above the rocks and escaped certain death.
The two reunited along the cliffs.
Then they realized that something was wrong.
Fable was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Fern.
Whatever haunted the Hallowed Falls had separated the party.