The group headed to the bar to get breakfast in the morning after a long night’s sleep. They all recapped the information they had learned the night before. Yore felt another temporal anomaly, and he made a face as he spun around trying to place what caused it. Slender noticed his change in expression as he was eating his toast and asked about it.
Yore looked between the members of the group, but finally sighed and admitted he was there to investigate weird fluxes in the timeline that had begun a little over a year prior. Recently, some temporal anomalies had begun at the site of the manor, but he had yet to figure out what was causing them. Yore pulled the crumpled note he found in the library out of his pocket and held it out to the others. It read:
Dearest Ukko,
My father told me all about your ordeal in the Desert of Endless Dreams. How many times have you been told to avoid that diabolical machine? I’d worry for your safety if I didn’t know you better. Perhaps you and I should catch up in person. I have much to tell you about X and his research. Not all of it would be safe to send through letters. He thinks himself close to reversing the process that bound his husband to this place. I cannot say any more now. I know there are beings in the walls, watching my every move.
I miss you, cousin. I miss being young and careless together, but those are things we cannot afford in times like this. If the mist serves as any indication, there is war on the horizon. We all need to play our part if we wish to avoid calamity. Maybe someday I’ll find what mine is.
Lunch is on me the next time we’re together; I just hope to see you soon. X still introduces me as a vampire, but I’m not so certain everyone is buying it. I’ve been so lonely as of late, never knew that being surrounded by the dead would be such a drag.
Love you dearly,
LL
Juno wrinkled her nose and looked at where Olaf was feeding Cake sausages on the floor. The older dwarf shook his head, not wanting to admit what he knew about Ukko’s fate to Yore. He told him that Ukko was a demi-God and son to Gruumsh. Yore seemed intrigued by that, but he mused that Liliana’s chosen title was Showstopper, and therefore likely wasn’t the one that wrote the note. Slender suggested they speak to Lucienne about it, wondering if she knew anything.
Juno excused herself out of the room right before Dorric entered the bar. She used the scrying stone to ask Alexander to meet her downstairs to relay the information the team had put together. He came down the steps and sat next to her on the bench in the hall outside the tavern towards the back of the manor. Juno asked him if he knew anything about how Lucienne and I met.
His look became distant as he thought about it, but he shook his head and apologized, citing he only met me the day prior. He did mention how many nice things I had said about Juno, and he told her he was sorry for the loss she was experiencing– noting he was also feeling similar sorrow over Xavi’s death. He offered her a shoulder to cry on if she needed it, then he added that the two of them could grab drinks and see where the evening went.
Juno didn’t think she could enjoy her time with him while I was missing, and thank the God Star for that. These fucking vampires.
Olaf and Yore walked out of the bar to fetch Juno after they had a conversation with a very depressed Dorric. She walked back in, not sure what to expect, as the two of them gave her very little heads up. Dorric was already a bit tipsy at the table in spite of it barely being 9 o’clock. He had mentioned to the two dwarves that he only dated elves or half-elves, and they let him know that Juno was quite single and naturally brilliant. He immediately tried to follow up on that when she walked in, offering to get her a drink.
“They told you…” Her eyebrows bunched together as she sat across from him at the table. He set the drink down a bit too hard and sloshed liquor onto the table. Juno was hard enough to get to have a drink with me in the evening. Somehow I doubted she was a day drinker. Cake was also still noisily eating her breakfast across the room– adding to the lack of romantic mood. “I– I’m not really looking for someone right now. I’m worried about my friend, and we just met–”
“Oh, I–” Dorric’s pale skin flushed with a color that turned him more purple than red. He quickly grabbed his drink from the ale coated table and threw it back while he recomposed. He nearly knocked the other cup over when he set it back down. Lightweight prick. “My apologies. Your friends–”
“Are idiots,” Juno finished with a sigh. She pushed the ale in front of her back over towards Dorric. He hesitated a second, but finally nodded at her and apologized for misreading signals.
Outside of the room, Alexander asked if Dorric had done something embarrassing– reading the look off of Juno’s face. She nodded, and he chuckled to himself. He went back to reading his book, so Juno sat next to him to ask about it for a while. He seemed to enjoy the company as much as she did.
The two of them spoke about his book, and a bit about how long Alexander had been undead. He mentioned his heritage from the feywild and asked about Juno’s home. She got pulled away before she could talk about Ilvaluna when Slender called for her from upstairs.
The group had opened up Xavi’s bedroom with the key from Liliana’s room. The inside was a bit of a mess with papers and measurement tools scattered about. The bed was made, however, proving that the maids must have still tidied up after his passing. There was a lever in the corner that Olaf grabbed and pulled down.
A grinding noise echoed from the basement, and Olaf wrinkled his nose as he looked from the lever to the others.
“Think I broke something?” He shrugged and said, “guess it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“What’s that?” Slender asked Juno as she stooped down to begin to work on the locked chest in the corner of the room. She shooed him away while she worked.
“Not yours,” was the only answer she gave him as the lock popped open. He stuck his tongue out at her and went back to search for other clues with Yore. Juno pulled out a painting of an unsmiling tiefling woman with dark hair and clothes, a strange looking hat, and a potion she couldn’t quite identify. She shoved all the loot in her bag and headed towards where Yore and Slender were eyeing a decorative skull. “That looks… cursed. I wouldn’t touch it if I were–”
Yore swiped it after a moment of careful consideration. There was a slip of paper between the jaws. He rotated the skull around in his hands, with Slender carefully looking at the odd emeralds in its eye sockets. They almost seemed to have movement inside of them. He held it out for Juno to take a look. She stepped away, still wary about whatever magic it held in it.
Juno left them to finish their search of Xavi’s room, heading back into the hall. She looked around and found one door open: Rozug’s room. Unfortunately the only thing she found in his room was a book of poorly written poetry on his bed. There was no trace of whoever had sent him after Ashen Cabaret.
She regrouped with the others outside of Lucienne’s room, and Yore knocked on the door. She let out a long sigh from the other side before opening it up and looking down at the dwarf through her pink glasses. A pair of shadowy silhouettes waited patiently behind her as she tried and failed to dismiss the group.
Yore requested a scroll of resurrection, and Lucienne slammed the door in his face with an annoyed huff. He added on a ‘please,’ and she opened it back up and tossed one at his face. He handed it over to Slender to wake up Lil’ Mole. Olaf realized he left their body downstairs outside of Liliana’s room, so he ran down to get it so they could revive the paladin.
The kenku woman spotted Lucienne and made a horrified screech of a sound before retreating away from her. Juno watched her flee, and followed her over to the other side of the foyer. She was shaking wildly. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing was shallow. She didn’t seem to calm down even as Juno approached.
“What’s wrong?”
The kenku pointed at the room and shook her head. Juno stayed silent as she repeated the conversation overheard in the basement between the woman and myself. Juno turned back towards Lucienne’s room with a newfound fury over what had happened to me. Her hand brushed the handle of her rapier as she led the way back over and glared at the blonde woman.
“What did you do to Jadeth?” Juno demanded. The others took a step back to give her room. Her cloak unfurled into wings as she stood there in quiet fury. Lucienne’s eyes narrowed, but she cocked her head. “Jadeth said you were her friend. She trusted you.”
“What are you talking about? I just met Jadeth this morning,” Lucienne took a few steps back into her room to pace. The copies of herself made space by clearing the furniture out of the way. Pacing to think must have been something she did often. Yore followed her into the room, fascinated by the gleaming feathery looking shield on her bed.
“Tell me the truth. The kenku repeated a conversation you had with her while she was trapped in the cage downstairs. You attacked her!” Juno said, her voice sounding more hurt than angry.
“I didn’t do anything to the idiot tiefling. She showed up here out of nowhere. It was odd but not odd enough to warrant my wrath.”
Juno stepped into the room, keeping careful track of where the copies were standing in case a fight broke loose. Lucienne weighed her own black steel sword in her hand as the copies circled the group. Juno tried to read Lucienne’s mind with her amulet, and she was fairly confident that the woman wasn’t lying. Though, what did that mean the kenku and I saw?
Yore peered further into the room on the opposite side as the door to the hall. He approached a map of the continent with little red x’s crossed out in various towns and along certain roads. He came back over and asked about the copies of Lucienne, and they both stopped moving.
Lucienne picked up her shield and slung it over her back. When it was apparent that no one was going to attack her, she sheathed her sword. Then she leaned in to get a better look at the dwarf. With a snap, both shadows vanished. She snapped again, and one reappeared with a golden pulse emitting from it. It twirled its own copy of her sword.
“These are my echoes. I use them to fight… Or to solve what happened to Xaviox.” She walked back over to the one. It swung a blade towards Shade as he made a noise messing with the lock on her nice sword case. He hissed and jumped away from it with both his hands raised. Lucienne drew her lips back in a grimace. “Or to kill those who steal from me.”
“You’ve been the thing causing the temporal anomalies?” Yore exclaimed. “These echoes are pulled from another timeline… Wait. What’s your surname?”
Lucienne thought about that for a moment. “Well, I’ve been a member of House Wardancer since I married Xaviox, but my mother’s surname was Ladybird.” She pulled the pink glasses up onto her forehead and narrowed her sparkling golden eyes again. “Why do you ask?” Yore handed over the note he found addressed to Ukko, and Lucienne quickly shoved it away into a drawer. “Did anyone– Where did you find this?”
“Crumpled up on the floor of the library yesterday,” answered Yore. Lucienne buried her face in her hands. Yore stroked his beard. “Your eyes… The echoes… Calling that demi-god your cousin… You’re a child of Chronos?”
“Chronos is not my father!” Lucienne raised her voice and clenched her fists. Yore flinched, so she hesitated. “Ugh. Ashen Cabaret, right? Get out of my room. You too, chronomage. I need time to think.” The echo ushered everyone out into the hallway with its sword and intimidating presence.
“I really thought we had something!” Slender threw his head back and groaned. “What do we do– start knocking down doors until we find something out about Jadeth and Xavi?”
“We could try that,” Olaf patted Talon. He gestured to a door off of the foyer next to where the kenku was hiding behind a potted plant. “How about that one?”
“Why not?” Juno said and bent down to get the lock open. She stood up and twisted the handle, but the door made a thump as it bumped into something on the other side. She took a step back and pushed again. “Something’s blocking it. Can I get a hand?”
Matanza puffed out their chest and took a running leap towards the door. They hit it with a fist hard enough that the tables blocking the door flew into the opposing wall and exploded into splinters of wood. Someone screamed in the room as it happened, but there was no one to be seen.
Slender led the way in and casted a magical detection. Yore followed and grabbed the letter off of the bed. Juno came in behind the two of them while Matanza stayed outside with Olaf and the kenku woman. Both of them were admiring the tiny bird’s strength, and they seemed to be enjoying the company.
The inside of the room was decorated with numerous burnt out candles and rose petals, smelling sweetly floral. Yore brushed the petals onto the floor of the bed and tore open the envelope to read what was inside. Juno approached the tub on the far side of the room to dip a finger into the cool water that had been prepared.
“Please don’t kill me!” a woman’s fearful shout snapped all eyes back over to Slender. The invisibility of one of the maids dissipated and she held her hands up in surrender and backed away. “I was just doing what I was told!”
“What were you doing in here?” Slender asked and took a step back.
“Hiding, mostly. Xaviox asked me to wait in here and steal the half-elf’s cloak! He said that she’d likely take it off once the tiefling brought her in here.” She gestured towards Juno.
“Why would I take my cloak off?” Juno muttered. Yore cleared his throat on the bed and handed out the letter for her. “What’s… Oh. Oh, gods.” She read over the red ink on the letter addressed to her. It was supposedly written from me asking her to spend the night together in a romantic way. It may have been perfect except. “Jadeth didn’t write this. The handwriting is too sloppy and her name is misspelled.” She crumpled it up and tossed it over to Slender, who was looking at it with a wild expression and wanting to know the details.
“Jadeth is the tiefling, isn’t she?” The maid asked quietly, beginning to lower her hands. She raised them up just as quickly when Juno turned towards her with her angry hazel eyes. “I– I watched her write that note herself. She was in this room, doing it fairly quickly. I’d say maybe she was drunk, but she didn’t seem to be.” Slender dropped his guard for just a second.
“You don’t think… there’s a shape changer here?” He asked. “I mean, vampires, they can change into bats and such, but is there a chance that one of them changed into people? Like Lucienne and Jadeth?”
“If you can, I suppose it’s not impossible,” Juno acknowledged with a nod.
Yore led the way back into the foyer and leaned over the railing. He pulled the skull back out of his bag. The eye gems gleaned from the light of the wall lanterns around them, reflecting the flame in the swirling fog inside of them. Yore grabbed the piece of paper, then hesitated before he could pull it out from the skull’s clenched jaws.
“Stay here a moment,” he said and walked down the hall away from the others. They all watched him curiously as he crossed to the other side of the manor and yanked the parchment from the skull’s mouth.
It was good thinking on his part. The eyes began to glow, and the jaw unhinged with a eyedrum shattering howl that rattled the floorboards and shattered the glass window panes. Yore tossed the skull onto the floor and covered his ears before any lasting damage could be done.
The skull began floating with a green flaming aura surrounding it. It bounced off of the walls as Yore began throwing spell after spell at it. It barreled towards the group, laughing madly. Olaf got ready to smash it apart if it came close, and Matanza was right behind him. Juno notched an arrow and Slender readied a spell, but before it could get too far from him, Yore cast his own.
A translucent wall appeared as a sphere around the skull. It smashed into the far side and bounced back. The laughter ended, and it soon began frantically bashing into the sides like it already knew the fight was over.
“Fuck’s sake!” Olaf shouted. “What is that thing?”
“Some sort of lich?” Yore answered and began filling the sphere with poisonous gas. “Doesn’t look like it can get out though. Easy enough to handle.”
“We can’t really get in either,” Shade added and tucked his pens away. “You look like you have it handled. Anyone want to hit the bar?” He gestured to the stairs. Olaf and the paladins considered for a second, but they all nodded.
Slender and Juno watched them go, but the two of them didn’t take their eyes off of the skull spinning around in the trap. Slender cast his own spell inside and began chasing the lich around with a swirling vortex of knives. It made a noise like a wail as it tried and failed to escape from the traps. Juno lowered her crossbow and watched.
Alexander peeked out of his bedroom door and gasped when he saw Yore and the lich right outside. Yore waved and asked if he wanted to help, but the vampire jumped back and slammed the door. Yore shrugged and added more toxic magic to the bubble. It didn’t take very long for it to choke to death in the trap.
Yore showed them the slip of paper he got from the lich’s mouth, letting them see the cipher key. None of the trio knew what it could belong to, but they planned to figure it out. Slender patted Yore on the back and generously offered to buy him the cheapest drink the bar had. As a broke college student, Yore gratefully accepted.
Juno watched them leave and leaned against the wall next to the big cracked window. Alexander continued to message her about the lich skull, and she let him know they handled it already. She turned and watched the thunderstorm continue outside as she wondered who had actually killed Xavi and kidnapped me. Little did she know, the answers were closer to being found than she would have expected.