As the moonlight turns the residents of Stockhagen into bestial abominations, as the lasers from the sky cut down the approaching garrison of Copenholm Republican soldiers, and as hordes of animals patrol the roads, hunting down anyone shrewd enough to take shelter or old enough to go to bed early, there is a party raging inside the chalet. Let us join in.

  A large ballroom takes up most of the building. Here, we see a variety of people from all across the land, united by the quality of their clothing and a laughter that can only accompany a peaceful life of leisure. Merchants, guildsmen, foreign nobles. Secret cults and not-so-secret cults. Senators of the Remoran Empire, adorned in blue-lined togas to advertise their affiliation with the dominant superpower. Spice traders with elaborate headdresses made of pure gold and precious gems. The upper crust. The highest of the high. The finest and most refined of the well-to-do. You know, assholes.

  Sneaking through the massive curtains that block out the outside world are a trio of vagrants. The faces of Marco, Emmitt, and Leylin are not currently covered by the bandit masks, but with their layers of ragged clothing covered in dirt and debris from the smoke bombs, they still appear quite out of place. At least there is no blood visible, which leaves most of the guests content to take a few steps away and ignore them.

  An indoor balcony overlooks the ballroom, descending down the middle with a majestic staircase. At the base of the staircase is a familiar face, this time in the flesh: Fitzgerald Fauntleroy McCappon. With the same toothy grin as in the painting, McCappon is the life of the party, clinking glasses and laughing with a crowd of high-class types around him. He does a trick where he flips his glass of champagne into the air and catches it again, the liquid holding in place. The others cheer as he takes a sip. Leylin gives him an odd look from across the ballroom. “Oh shit that’s the guy.”

  “Oh shit he just saw you,” Marco says.

  He’s right. After her prolonged staring, McCappon meets eyes with Leylin and is now looking in their direction. An immediate look of disgust crosses his face. The three of them look away as several guards approach from McCappon’s direction. Their shields as well bear the initials of .

  “Big guy says he didn’t invite you,” the guard at the front tells them. “Probably best if you go quietly.”

  There are four guards surrounding them now. A few of the guests nearby are starting to look over as well. Marco catches the gaze of a bird-headed person in the distance, staring intensely at him with the literal eyes of a hawk. He shrinks back as Emmitt and Leylin do the same.

  “We, um, invited,” Emmitt says.

  “You’re gonna need more details than that if you want to stick around.”

  Emmitt puts up his hands in front of him, taking a defensive posture at a few different levels. “We come from the land of, uh…

  “We were sent here by…” Marco trails off.

  Leylin cuts in front. “It’s a really long story if we could just—"

  “Well there, esteemed guests.” The party and all of the guards turn with equal expressions of shock and confusion to see the waiter standing in the middle of them. She takes the shape of a large humanoid turtle, with fine servant’s robes forced awkwardly over her shell. She holds out a tray of meatballs. “I see you fine merchants have travelled all the way from the marshes of the Somnat. Montgomery has been dying to meet you, and hopes you can make haste in meeting with him. Ahem-hem.”

  The turtle person speaks in what appears to be a poor parody of the upper-class accent of the other guests. Nevertheless, the guards appear to recognize the name she has thrown out, and allow her to escort them away. Marco looks back in disbelief as the guards disperse behind them. The same hawk person is still staring at him from across the room, but everyone else has returned to their initial conversations.

  The waiter leads them towards the stairs beside the kitchen area. Once they are away from the guards, her voice lowers to a whisper, dropping the accent. “

  Though still rather confused, this gives them the assurance they need to follow her down the stairs and out of the ballroom. The four of them are now standing in a large storage area filled with barrels and crates. An icebox sits in the corner, kept frigid by some form of magic. Leylin peeks inside to see assorted cuts of meat and premade hors d’oeuvres. Far more peculiar are the bags of cement-like material strapped to each of the pillars that hold up the floor above. Gabriel is fastening another one as she speaks with a commanding, nasally voice.

  “So where’s Gotavv right now, still at the tavern? I see Edvard gave you the fireworks. Quite a show outside.”

  Awkward glances all around. Marco gives an anxious glance up the stairs as Leylin continues to ruffle through the icebox. Emmitt finally steps forward and breaks the news with a cautious tone. “Gotavv and Edvard didn’t make it.”

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  Gabriel stops and looks directly at Emmitt. It’s hard to discern the expression on her reptilian face. She similarly doesn’t seem to have much regard for tasteful eye contact, staring at him with eyes wide open. “What happened?”

  “Edvard was killed by Skarann, with the lasers. Gotavv, well, he was transformed, and he was attacking us, and—"

  “And you killed him.” She states it as a matter of fact, turning back to fasten the bags to the pillars. “Alright. You did what you did. We don’t have time to throw a sob fest. We have a moon to kill, after all.”

  Once she is satisfied that the bag is secure, Gabriel leaves it in place and grabs another strange object from the belt beneath her waiter uniform. It is a small stone, about the size of her palm, that has been carved into the shape of an ear. She speaks into the stone carving as though it is the most natural thing in the world.

  “Still nothing? Alright, you can move to Point B. We’re going to stay in the chalet for a little while, see if there’s anything else we can find out. There is a pause as she puts the stone ear to her own and listens. Then she puts it back in front of her mouth. “Sounds good. Keep me posted.”

  Gabriel places the ear carving on a nearby crate and turns to face everyone else, beckoning them over. She speaks with the cadence of an officer giving a speech to their troops.

  “Good now, listen up, I’m going to give you folks the rundown. You’ll remember from the reports I sent you that the Republic of Copenholm was distributing special weapons along the coast to protect against the lycanthropes. The town of Stockhagen was no exception. Only here the McCappon Company hired a mercenary group named Seraphim to steal the weapons so that they could be resold for profit. Our best bet is to locate the weapons and use them to kill Skarann.”

  Looks of understanding as everything starts to come together. At the mention of Seraphim Emmitt gives a glance over at Marco, who ignores him. Instead Marco raises his hand as though he is in a schoolhouse. “Quick question. All of the Seraphim/McCappon stuff matches what we’ve been seeing, but how exactly are silver weapons going to help us kill the moon? They don’t even help with the were-things, normal weapons do fine. And Skarann is pretty far up in the sky.”

  “Not just silver weapons,” she says. “If I’ve been hearing right, they’ve pulled out some heavy-duty stuff. We’ll still need a way to get up there to fight him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

  “Sure.” Marco remains highly skeptical, to say the least. Emmitt is a little more encouraged, nodding and thinking it over. Leylin is trying to balance a frozen meatball at the end of her sword, a little distracted.

  “We actually met a group of Seraphim mercenaries over at the warehouse,” Emmitt says. “Maybe that could help.”

  “Did they have the weapons?” Gabriel asks.

  “Well, no. I don’t think so. Marco recognized some of them, but apparently we’re not allowed to ask him about it.” Emmitt tries to keep a lighthearted tone, giving Marco a playful bump on the shoulder with his fist. Marco is unmoved.

  Gabriel doesn’t seem to mind, stretching her reptilian neck to look right at his face. “What happened? Tell me.”

  “I used to work with them, now I don’t.” Marco looks into her dark eyes with a tired expression.

  “Well you don’t have the best taste in friends.” She retracts her neck and turns back to the bags on the pillars, looking over the lot of them.

  “Colleagues. And we weren’t taking jobs like that at the time.”

  Leylin finally focuses back on the conversation at hand and develops an interest in the strange cement-like substance strapped to the pillars. She pokes one with her finger, feeling the squishy, clay-like material. “What is this stuff anyway?”

  “High-grade magical explosives,” Gabriel tells her.

  Leylin slowly pulls her finger from the bag. “Oh.”

  Emmitt’s eyes grow wide as he instinctually takes a step back. “Why? Why are we filling the basement with explosives?”

  “To blow up the chalet.” Gabriel continues with her inspections, moving from pillar to pillar, without any concern on her face. After a while she realizes that the three of them are all staring at her with worried expressions. She returns a blank look. “What? If the curtains in the ballroom are opened, or the ceiling collapses, or something else like that happens, there is going to be an army of animals in here under Skarann’s control. Think of this as insurance. The explosion will only be big enough to collapse the floor anyway, which should buy us some time. And if it doesn’t come to that, then we can still detonate everything at a distance.”

  She takes a small wand made of blue marble material from her belt and waves it in front of them.

  “Flick of the wrist, a few ancient incantations recited under my breath, and boom, we have a distraction. Should get us out of a bind if Skarann catches us between hideouts.”

  “What about all the non-transformed people inside?” Emmitt asks.

  “There is not a single blasted innocent person up there. It’s a win either way in my books.” Gabriel jabs the wand upward at the ballroom floor to accentuate her point. She returns the wand to her belt and takes the stone ear carving from the crate nearby. “I have a friend across town, he’s in the library right now. Hold on, I think he’s saying something. Richard? Richard? Are you there?”

  Leylin and Marco exchange skeptical looks. There does not appear to be much sound coming from the ear carving, through Gabriel is holding it quite closely. At the very least she seems to be having some kind of conversation, moving her head back and forth in a bobbing motion.

  “I’m almost done down here, but we’re going to take a look around. If anyone knows where it is, it’s got to be McCappon himself. Let me know when you’ve got a mark on the stragglers.” She turns back to everyone in-person. “We might have a lead elsewhere, but in the meantime, you all should go back to the party. See what you can overhear, make conversation, eat those weird meatball things.”

  Gabriel unbuttons the waiter shirt and lifts it off of her shell, holding it out.

  “I need to stay down here for a while, make sure the fuse is all set up. One of you is going to need to take over as waiter, to cover for me.”

  “I don’t think I’d really be suit—" Marco looks over to see that Emmitt and Leylin have both put a finger on their nose, leaving him as the last one in this strange contest. Marco sighs, shaking his head. Gabriel drops the shirt into his arms, which he reluctantly accepts.

  “Don’t forget the appetizers.” Leylin is grinning ear-to-ear as Marco buttons the shirt over his ragged outfit, concealing his swords and knives under the various layers. He gives her a scowl as he takes the plate of meatballs off of the create nearby.

  “Oh I wouldn’t dream of it.”