Midnight Crisis

Shoal manages to escape the Must Manor with Flynn by burrowing underground. With little life left in him, Flynn sets out to return to the Happy Seadog Inn on his own while Shoal heads back to the mansion to see if they can rescue the rest of the party. On his walk around the outskirts of the Must Estate, Flynn is stopped by an eerie fox-like creature with glowing yellow eyes that speaks to Flynn. The creature somehow paralyzes Flynn, steals the broken Fay-glass that he had recovered from Lord Must, and disenchants all of the runes on his weapons and armor. The eerie Fox then hopped off the roadside fencepost and began strolling through the grasses of the Must Estate toward the Mansion. Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Reuben, Ana, & Flynn were being interrogated by the captain of the Must Mansion guard. The captain is skeptical of their stories and has a guard knock Rayna unconscious when she tries to proclaim their innocence. 

The guard captains’ watch over the trio was cut short as a strange young doll girl came trotting downstairs and began walking across the basement floor ignoring the protests of the guard. When the captain of the guard attempted to physically stop the girl from approaching any further, the girl glared at her and the captain cried out in pain as she crumbled into dust and disappeared. With a gesture, the young doll collected all the blood in the room in a bucket and went back upstairs where cries of pain could be heard. Meanwhile, Shoal managed to recruit the help of the manor’s farm animals to distract the guards and get inside. They just barely managed to get into the basement, revive the party, free them and help them escape. 

As the four of them began to flee there was a tremendous quaking as the mansion began to collapse before exploding into the sky revealing three massive inky black tendrils that began to whip about the manor, pummeling buildings and smashing what remained of the mansion as a fiery pulp. Reuben turned on these tendrils, recognizing them from his past, and attempted to face them down; barely escaping with his life. Rayna, Reuben, Ana, and Shoal began the slow and somber trek back to the Happy Seadog as what remained of Must Manor went up in flames. 

Shoal noticed on the way back that Brannock from the Greybloods had been following them, but they deterred him from following them any further before they arrived at the Inn. There, they regrouped with Flynn. They started to recount their experiences, tempers flared between Reuben and Ana, both confused and unsure what to make of this event and how it relates to their pasts. Exhausted and exasperated the parties settled in for the evening when Ana experienced another vivid dream.