Episode 27: Last Hours of Daylight

**Episode 27:Last Hours of Daylight** (1x27) - And then at long last, The Nearlies went to bed. Strange dreams and fitful sleep later, they head into a town that will never ever be the same, though not all of them even remember all of the impacts they made on the village due to some heavy drinking. (Check out these Side quests on Patreon!) The weak light of day follows them as they determine the way to Applejack’s ancestral home and head into the quickly darkening wood not knowing that things are going to be getting very dark, for an unknown time to come.

Also features a check in with Martin’s Sacred Curse, the dangerous and unstable Sirque.

## Cast

### Nearlies

Josh | Xenator Brisbane
Kathy | Lavaleen Crest
Andy | Martin Sirque
Amanda | Gwendylyn Cloot
 Robbie | The Speaker
 Aaron |  Production & Sound

### NPCs

APPEARING
 Dodderfell
 Von Dark
 Nighgod

## Summary

After a long night, the group reconvenes in the Sad Swan Inn. Over breakfast they discuss the conflicting advice they've been given on how to get to Serabythia. Nighgod directs the group to the mayor. While he is doing this it is discovered that he is not human, but instead a faun who just wants to live peacefully in the village, but must hide his identity due to local prejudices.

On their way to the mayor, the group discovers a little creature found in the wizard tower, and three bear cubs discovered in their packs (all souvenirs of the group's night walks from the night before). They essentially decide to deal with everything later. They make it to the mayor's and eventually get him to tell them how to get to Serabythia. Following his instructions the group runs into the Gentleman Hunter, where the episode ends.

## Synopsis

### Prologue

Mistlander discussion. The long fight between the people of the fey, and the mortal people over the lands of Un.  This fight has left both peoples with some bitterness, so the two live separately.

### Episode

After a long night, the group reconvenes in front of the Sad Swan Inn.  Xenator approaches, covered in purple goo, a souvenir from him night cleaning out the Wizard’s Tower.  While he goes to clean up, Lavaleen and Gwendylyn respond to a long night of drinking with more drinking, and fall asleep at the bar until morning.

Dreams – Xenator has a dream of a bejeweled puzzle box. Rubies – can be charged with raw emotional energy; Emeralds - dreams; Diamonds – purity and can trap light; Sapphires – Ice rime; Topaz – house/channel lightening

Xenator puts some magic into the sapphires.  A great cold rushes over him and he wakes up shivering, but gains +5 to empowered glass spells

Valeriana – Dreams of the She Wolf’s dream.  She slides into darkness.  Ahead is two passageways.  She slides up and to the left.  She feels wind and wakes up, gaining the wolf’s breath

The group wakes up the next morning for breakfast, Gwendylyn and Lavaleen with a hangover from the previous evening.  Over breakfast they discuss the information they received about how to get to Serabythea, and quickly realize they were given conflicting advice about which path to take.  Nighgod, upset at the implication that his information might be wrong and be the cause of the death of the party, lets out a bleat.  Embarrassed, he retreats quickly to the kitchen.

Gwendylyn, suspicious goes outside to gather some alfalfa spouts that are specifically delicious to goats.  Upon returning, Nighgod smells the foliage and comes back to the common room and asks if he can have them.  She refuses to hand them over until he tells her what he is.

Nighgod gasps, then asks if Martin told them, upset that his bribe of fairy water didn’t keep Martin quiet.  Gwendylyn assures him that Martin did not betray his secret, but as a Chemerite she has an affinity, and already knew.  Defeated, Nighgod removes his wig, revelaing goat ears and two little horns.  He then removes his shoes, revealing goat hooves.  He said he likes being a faun, but the fey folk in the Grimwood were very extreme and he was tired of living in such a dangerous environment.  He likes the life in the village, but they don’t accept fey folk, so he had to hide his identity in order to live within the walls.

After declining to come with the group, as he quite likes his inn, they ask Nighgod if there is anybody they can ask for information on how to get to Serebythia.  He sends them to go talk to the Mayor at his manor, as he is an old friend of Otak, Sarah’s father.

The group heads outside to go talk to the mayor. The bear that had been chained up in the middle of the village turns towards Gwendylyn accusingly.  Val, familiar with animals, and Martin, familiar with transformations, come to the conclusion that this bear is not actually a bear. They make the decision to just pass by quickly, rather than explore it further.  They do discover that shadow steel materials disappear in the sunlight.

On the way to the mayor’s they pass where Grandma Ninn and the villagers are staying.  Gwen, unable to deal with a lecture in her hungover state decides that she can talk to her grandma when they return from delivering Sarah’s ashes, rather than right then as had been requested.  At this point, Val notices rustling coming from Gwen and Lavaleen’s packs, and in Xenator’s robes.

Upon being questioned, Xenator pulls out a little white creature, Grisbell.  He had been abandoned in the Wizard’s tower, so Xenator rescued him while he was cleaning out the tower.  While the group fawns over Grisbell, the rustling from Gwen and Lavaleen’s packs continues.  When Martin inspects it, it turns out to be three bear cubs, who come tumbling out.

Despite coming out of their own backpacks, Gwen and Lavaleen express confusion about where the bears came from.  Their ignorance frustrates Xenator.  Since he is the only one that remembers, he explains that they had already been named (Peanut, Darcy, and Xenator jr.).  After some very difficult thinking, Gwendylyn remembers that she turned a huge enraged man into a bear, and Lavaleen remembers discovering the caged bear cubs underneath the body of their mother.

The group then tries to figure out what to do with three bear cubs.  Xenator, callously suggests finding a circus.  Upon the mention of a circus, Martin’s eye twitches, and he starts humming calliope music.  The group notices that something is weird in his eyes, but nothing else.  Dodderfell volunteers to take care of the babies. Xenator wants to turn the bear in the center of town back into a man, but the ladies are resistant to that idea. As they are currently refusing to consider the idea, Xenator agrees to table the discussion until they return back to town.

They finally make it to the mayor’s.  He seems to enjoy performing, and is doing acrobatics and magic in front of a small crowd.  After enduring some of his magic tricks, the group finally gets to ask him about Serabythia.  He explains that is the name of a kingdom in the Grimmwood, one of the thorn kingdoms. It is where Otak’s wife came from and she missed home so much they named the manor after her homeland.  Despite this, her homesickness overwhelmed her and she ran back to her homeland, leaving behind Sarah and another daughter. As is tradition, Otak remarried, although he remains in love with his first wife, and the rumor is that he wanders the Grimwood in search of her.

They then discover that there are actually four paths, not three, on the journey to Serabythia.  He initially says he needs to ‘test’ them, before telling them how to get there, and begins what would presumably be a long, convoluted series of riddles and quests that would be inflicted upon the Nearlies.  Gwendylyn, in her hungover state, is not in the mood and interrupts him, telling him that they had Sarah’s ashes.  Finding out that Sarah has died, understandably upsets the mayor, but does make him get to the point.  The correct way to get to Serabythia is that, upon reaching the  splitting of the path, to turn around and go back the way you came, but with the intention of going forward.

The Mayor gives a very appreciative Martin a trick coin that can be used to pull from behind someone’s ear.  While Martin is annoying Lavaleen with this new trick, the mayor, upon hearing her name, mentions that a man came through the other day asking after a ‘Queen Lavaleen’.  The group is quick to shut down this line of conversation, pointing out the absurdity of a queen going out adventuring.  Properly diverted, the mayor continues his cavorting and the group heads to Serabythia.

As described the path eventually leads to a split in three directions.  After some debate, the group decides to follow the mayor’s advice, figuring if he was wrong they would just end up back in the village anyway.  Upon turning around, the world shifts.  Suddenly there is a man standing there in the middle of the path, facing them. He is incredibly disturbing looking, and appears to be wearing a suit constructed of human skin.

### Epilogue

Long ago, man came into the world of the animals.  They hunted, killed, ate, the animals of the world.  The animals tried to fight back but lost over and over.  In desperation they went deep into the woods and found an eldwood tree. One animal stepped forward, calling for the thing that lived within the tree to come out.  They struck a deal with the creature and released a ‘hunter of hunters’.  The Gentleman Hunter hunts down heroes and takes their pelts, as humans have long done to animals.

## Notables

Episode 27

 Objects Acquired

 Spells Used

 Metamorph Attempts

## Quotables

Nighgod: What if I told you wrong? What if I was sending you to certain doom?
Xenator: Well then we’ll be dead and it will be your fault.
Nighgod: :GASP:
Xenator: A little dead wizard humor there for you, Nighgod

## External Links

Patreon
Instagram
Twitter
 Website - Episode 27