03/03/2026: The Illusion of Plenty

The dining room is warm with the illusion of plenty. The long table groans beneath an impossible spread — roasted meats glistening with imaginary juices, braised vegetables steaming in lacquered bowls, bread loaves cracked open to reveal soft, pillowy interiors. The smell alone is enough to make Biblo’s mouth water. He settles into a chair and reaches for a morsel, sampling dish after dish with growing unease. Everything smells magnificent. Everything tastes of absolutely nothing — like pressing his tongue to cold stone, like chewing air that has forgotten how to be food.

A door opens.

The nothic shuffles in wearing tattered priest’s robes, its single enormous eye rolling wetly in its socket before fixing its unblinking gaze directly on Biblo. The creature’s attention is total, predatory, and deeply uncomfortable.

“Oh — beg your pardon,” Biblo says quickly, pushing back his chair and rising with as much dignity as he can manage. “I was just leaving. Please, don’t mind me.”

He excuses himself through the same door the nothic entered, stepping out into the cold air — and stops.

He stands on a crumbling balcony that juts out over a vast, echoing space. Below, far below, black marble floors gleam in the dim light. An enormous statue rises from that floor, climbing past him toward the ceiling above, so massive it seems to anchor the entire hall. Biblo’s eyes travel upward to the statue’s head, where the windows glow — a faint, frosted luminescence. Behind the glass, barely visible, a silhouette. Pointed ears. A sharp, angular nose. Something alive and waiting inside.

Biblo leans forward to get a better look.

The balcony gives way beneath him.

Stone crumbles. His stomach lurches. And then he is falling — thirty feet of cold air rushing past him before the black marble floor arrives all at once.

He lies there a moment, blinking up at the distant ceiling, pain radiating through his back and shoulders. Then, from somewhere in the dark hall, he hears it — the high, thin buzzing of a flame skull. Then another.

⚔

Still smoldering from the earlier skirmish, Zilk pushes through the dining room, grateful to leave the chaos behind. He spots an open door and shoulders through it to avoid the spirits and the nothic— then skids to an abrupt halt, arms windmilling at his sides.

The balcony crumbles at his feet. The drop is dizzying. Far below on the black marble, Biblo lies flat on his back, two flame skulls drifting toward him like malevolent lanterns. Across the cavernous hall, the great statue looms — and from somewhere deep within its hollow frame, Zilk hears the faint but unmistakable ring of footsteps descending a metal staircase.

He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls out a rope and drops it over the edge.

⚔

Back in the stairwell, Ratrick drives his dagger of venom hard into the nearest flame skull. The blade catches bone with a grating shriek of metal on ancient calcified matter, leaving a thin orange line of poison seeping into the crack. Ratrick watches, waiting.

Nothing happens.

The skull bobs serenely, utterly unbothered. Right. Immune to poison. Brilliant.

⚔

Racing up the hallway, Soulfire plants herself between Ratrick and the skull, draws her focus, and releases a Sorcerous Burst. The spell cracks against the skull like a thunderclap, the force of it rippling the air. It’s enough — Ratrick is clear. The flame skull’s response is immediate and merciless. A beam of searing fire catches Soulfire full in the chest, and the demon staggers, badly burned. The ratling doesn’t wait. He streaks past her and vanishes up the hallway.

⚔

Nike charges in, her Mace of Smiting singing through the air. She swings once — the skull bobs aside. She swings again — it dips beneath the arc with horrible, eyeless instinct. The skull moves to push past her, and Nike brings the mace down with everything she has. It misses the skull entirely and fractures the marble floor with a thunderous crack, sending stone chips skittering across the walls.

The skull detonates.

The explosion tears through the narrow hallway in a ball of orange fire — walls, ceiling, floor all lit up in an instant of searing brilliance before the smoke rolls in.

⚔

Ratrick bursts through a door and the smell hits him first — roasted meat, warm bread, something spiced and sweet. The dining room. The long table still laid out in its impossible feast, every dish gleaming and fragrant. One of the nothics is already seated, scooping something from a bowl with its bare hands, sucking its fingers with loud, wet satisfaction. One of the drifting spirits near the wall catches Ratrick’s eye and gestures invitingly toward the food.

Ratrick doesn’t need much convincing. He seizes an enormous drumstick from what was once a very impressive turkey, the skin crackling and golden, the meat glistening with dripping juices. He can feel the grease coating his fingers. He can hear the crunch as his teeth break through the crispy skin and sink into the flesh. He pulls the meat from the bone —

And chews.

It is like a mouthful of crumbly wax. Not unpleasant, not bitter, just… absent. A perfect theatrical nothing. He washes the flavorless mouthful down with a long pull from a jug of water — and, noting that his clothing is still faintly smoldering, uses the rest to douse himself.

⚔

“Grab the rope!” Zilk shouts down from the damaged balcony.

Biblo seizes it. With Zilk hauling from above, he climbs, hand over hand, up the thirty feet of swinging rope and drags himself back onto the balcony. Both of them, heavy fighters to the bone, take one look at each other and step smartly back from the edge.

The section of balcony where Biblo had been standing a moment before groans, tilts, and collapses — the stone vanishing into the dark below with a long, echoing crash.

⚔

Shifty moves back through the entrance of the Amber Temple, following the sounds of the aftermath. There, in the corridor, is the demon who calls herself Soulfire — injured, one hand resting on the head of a tame wolf that leans peacefully against her leg. The wolf’s eyes track Shifty without alarm.

“You’re hurt,” Shifty observes.

“Perceptive,” Soulfire replies.

“I can fix that.” A pause. “Caterpillars.”

Soulfire considers this. A deal is struck. Shifty channels healing magic into the demon’s burned flesh, watching the wounds close with quiet satisfaction, then continues up the hallway.

⚔

In the Great Hall, a figure steps out from the base of the massive statue.

It walks on its hind legs. It has the lean, bristled look of a hackle — a muzzle extended in a long, sharp snout, dark eyes quick with intelligence. It tilts its head, that snout swinging toward Biblo, still standing on the damaged balcony above.

“You!” The voice carries easily across the vast space, clipped and imperious. “There! What are you doing in the Great Library? The Lich Exethanter will be displeased in the extreme.” The creature’s eyes sweep the hall with sharp suspicion. “Or do you have comrades also in the Temple?”

Biblo straightens, doing his best to look like a man entirely alone and entirely at ease on a collapsing balcony. “I’m by myself,” he says. “Just me. Travelling alone. Quite peacefully.”

From somewhere deeper in the Temple, something crashes. Voices echo faintly. The creature — Neferon, it seems to call itself — turns that long snout back toward Biblo with an expression that suggests it is not entirely foolish.

“Come,” it says flatly. “We will speak with the Lich.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​