The troupe pressed onward through the oppressive darkness of the void, roped together as they had been for days, navigating the strange network of platforms and pathways that stretched endlessly into nothingness. Ravenna continued her deep meditations, piecing together the history of a lost civilization in a land called Chernyy Polyats that had once mastered travel through the void – a people who had ultimately faded away, their secrets fading with them. Her focus eventually sharpened onto that continent of Chernyy Polyats, a distant landmass in the extreme north of the world, crackling with such intense magical radiation that it had drawn the attention of the ancient Khazdu Empire for thousands of years. Expedition after expedition had been sent across Big Ocean to study it, yet only one in ten ever returned, bringing back tales of strange monsters, incredible phenomena, and power enough to drive a person mad.
As the days of travel in the void wore on, Ravenna shifted her meditations, reasoning that if the lost civilization had mapped a route from their homeland to somewhere else, perhaps the reverse could be found: had anyone from Chorni Polyats ever traveled to the land that would one day become the Khazdu Empire? It was a thread worth pulling, and she resolved to pursue it. Meanwhile, the physical and emotional toll of the journey was beginning to show on the rest of the group.
Sentinel Selarin and Sentinel Stillwater had grown increasingly vocal in their frustration, their muttered complaints carrying through the unnatural quiet of the void. They questioned the navigation, the timeline, and the wisdom of pressing on, their voices low but unmistakably audible. Rekha Mar-Khabazza heard every word and said nothing – but quietly added both names to a mental list. To ease the tension, Magnus Strange shared some of his nutritional nuts with the disgruntled sentinels, giving each only half, since they were, after all, on his list.
Rekha addressed the group with the kind of theatrical confidence that had carried him through worse situations, gesturing into the pitch blackness and speaking of the hollow feeling in one’s stomach that felt like victory. Whether he was leading them or duping himself was a matter of some debate, but the troops held together. Rations were quietly reduced to three-quarters, and the troupe pressed on with the grim determination of people who had come too far to turn back.
October 19, 7762
On the ninth day, the troupe woke on a node with eleven exits and chose a path that led them down a medium-width corridor stretching into the void. After a few hundred feet, they emerged onto a platform containing no exits pathways at all, but held a massive, silvery portal shimmering faintly in the nothingness.
As they stepped onto the platform, they caught a glimpse of an avian-esque foot – unmistakably that of a winter elf – disappearing through it. The group exchanged glances. Someone had just used this portal, and they had no idea where it led.
Rather than rushing through blindly, the troupe took their time. They cross-referenced the winter elf map they had been carrying, looking for any indication that this portal was a known route. Ravenna focused her considerable magical talent on the portal itself, attuning to it with remarkable speed and precision, gaining a sense of its nature and control over its opening. The portal appeared permanent, consistent with every other gate they had encountered in the void. After careful deliberation, they organized themselves into a tactical formation – with the two mutinous sentinels placed directly behind the vanguard, a decision Rekha made with barely concealed satisfaction as he watched their faces darken with impotent fury.
They stepped through. The silvery light gave way to a different kind of gloom – the dusty, cavernous interior of a tall cathedral with boarded windows and shattered stained glass. At the center of the cross-shaped hall stood a tall pedestal with statue of a man in robes. The realization settled over the group like a warm blanket: they were standing in the Church of Eternal Sunshine, in Opal.
They were home. Magnus crouched and examined the dust-covered floor, finding four sets of fresh avian tracks – the unmistakable prints of winter elves – leading out of the church and into the night.
The troupe emerged into the cold. It was the nineteenth of October, and winter had arrived in earnest while they were gone. A biting wind carried a drizzle of freezing rain, and a thin coating of snow blanketed the streets of Opal. The trade season had ended, the merchants long since fled south. Magnus, along with the rangers Lokni and Kima, set off immediately to follow the tracks, while Rekha Mar-Khabazza led the rest of the group back toward the Salt House. Naisha, ever the faithful bodyguard, stayed close to Rekha’s side.
The trackers followed the avian prints through the slushy, well-traveled streets, losing them briefly in the churned-up road before Kima spotted them again on the far side. The trail led north toward a building the troupe recognized – a former hideout where they had fought before – before the tracks turned south onto the main road and disappeared into the traffic of the thoroughfare. Ravenna used her magic to trace the winter elves’ location, pinpointing all four of them at a furrier’s shop near the south end of the city. Magnus immediately broke into a jog toward the city watch barracks.
Back at the Salt House, Rekha Mar-Khabazza demanded a bath. While Lotwil Veriatus operated the taps and read the winter store tallies aloud, Masha brought soup and fresh cream pastries, updating Rekha on everything that had transpired in their absence. The Imperial Legate and her entourage had vanished as mysteriously as they had arrived. The city council had withdrawn the official watch from the Salt House, though the hired riflemen remained. The snow leopard had disappeared, noted with concern by the departing merchants. Lady Catriona von Indi reportedly had good news about the trade season waiting for him. Rekha listened to all of it from the bath, eating pastries, and ordered the riflemen to perform elaborate changing-of-the-guard ceremonies twice a day with lots of marching and shiny boots.
At the barracks, Magnus found Senior Sergeant Joktuk eating a late dinner. The grizzled watch commander listened without expression as Magnus explained the situation – winter elves in the city, tracked to two specific locations, and a need to strike before they moved again. Joktuk grunted, set down his spoon, and began organizing his men. Half an hour later, a corporal and five footmen – armed with polearms, broadswords, and shields – fell in behind Magnus as Joktuk led a separate contingent toward the northern building.
Magnus rejoined Ravenna, Lokni, and Kima outside the furrier’s shop at building 940, a well-maintained two-story wooden structure pressed up against neighboring buildings on three sides, with only a single entrance at its peaked front. Light leaked through the cracks in the upper shutters. Ravenna wove a web of magical connection between herself, Magnus, a ranger, and several of the watchmen, linking their senses so that what one perceived, the others would share. She also cloaked Magnus in a veil of supernatural stealth as he scouted the perimeter. The plan took shape: a watchman who regularly bought gear from the furrier would knock on the door with a story about a snow leopard carcass found on patrol, drawing out whoever was inside while the rest of the group waited in the shadows.
A boy of about fourteen answered the door, wrapped in winter clothes and blinking sleepily. Through her magical connection to the group, Ravenna sensed immediately that the boy had no soul. The word passed silently through the battle link. Magnus stepped out of the shadows, grabbed the boy by his tunic, and hurled him into the street with perfect, devastating leverage. The boy landed on his head, his neck snapping on impact, and he lay still in the slushy snow. The city watchmen stared. Magnus was already moving through the door.
He took the stairs fast, emerging into the upper floor to find four figures gathered around a table heavy with incense smoke. A young boy sat to one side. A broad-shouldered, bushy-bearded man who resembled a Chati frontiersman sat across from him. A featureless, gray humanoid – roughly carved from clay, its limbs ending in stumpy, handless appendages – occupied another seat. And at the center of it all sat the Slenderman: gaunt, skeletal, draped in voluminous robes, in the middle of a long, slow drag from a pipe. He looked up at Magnus with hollow eyes. Then everyone moved at once.
Magnus seized the boy and launched him down the staircase, where he landed with a sickening crack. A shadowy, bird-like shape rose from the corpse and drifted away into the dark – visible only to those linked through Ravenna’s magic, a silent confirmation of what they already suspected. The Slenderman struck Magnus in the chest, rattling him. The clay creature pummeled his leg with its stump-like limb, leaving him staggered and in pain. The Chati man swung a club and missed. Ravenna crept to the top of the stairs and unleashed a blast of freezing cold at the Slenderman, coating him in frost and sending him stumbling. The city watchmen poured in behind her.
The fight was brutal and chaotic. Ravenna sent a wave of overwhelming mental agony washing over all three remaining enemies, leaving them operating in a haze of pain. The clay creature slipped on the ice Ravenna had left on the floor and went down. Magnus swept it across the room, leaving it stunned and helpless. The city watchmen flanked the Chati man and delivered a catastrophic blow that shattered his chest and left him suffocating on the floor. The Slenderman, battered and frost-covered, made his decision. He vanished in an instant, reappearing in the street below, then again on a rooftop across the way, leaping northward with inhumanly long strides as the watch archers fired blindly into the dark and missed.
Ravenna grabbed Magnus and teleported them both onto a nearby rooftop to cut off the escape. The ground beneath their feet was steeply sloped and dusted with snow, and the sudden shift from flat floor to angled tiles was too much – Ravenna lost her footing immediately, struck her head against the roof, and saw stars. Magnus kept his balance, watching the Slenderman’s silhouette bound from rooftop to rooftop toward a distant inn, each leap covering an impossible distance. With Ravenna stunned and both of them already battered from the fight, Magnus made the call. The chase was over. The Slenderman had escaped.
They descended carefully and regrouped with the city watch. The soldiers searching the ground floor had found the true furrier and his apprentices – their bodies stuffed into a footlocker in the back storeroom, along with a locked cash box. Magnus informed Joktuk of the outcome, commended the watchmen for their service, and requested that the building be secured to prevent the public from wandering in. The rangers Lokni and Kima were thanked and bid farewell, and Magnus did his best to hide how much he admired them.
Somewhere out in the dark streets of Opal, the Slenderman was licking his wounds and plotting his next move. But for tonight, the troupe had won. Magnus and Ravenna made their way to the Menagerie, spending freely on baths, massages, and the warm company of courtesans, letting the tension of nine days in the void and one very violent evening slowly dissolve. The city was quiet. The snow kept falling. And the Salt House stood watch over it all, its riflemen marching in their shiny boots, putting on a show for the neighbors.
