078. Outfoxed!

The motley return to the Spark and decide on their next quest.

***"When I played Magic, I played with a group of friends: when the game ends, the friendship fell away."***

Before leaving Tara-Nar, Patches is summoned to meet with Carendlyth, the new High Lord of House Gwydion. She demands to know what events led to the deposing of Duke Allenion, and Patches is up front with her: she became fed up with his superiority, and that he "didn't deserve the rank he was abusing". Carendlyth acknowledges that High Queen Lenore pardoned Patches for her actions, even if they were in self-defense, but that she doesn't really have the power to decide who gets to keep their title. She asks Patches to come to her first if she ever decides to accept a title in any noble house, so that Gwydion can at least keep up appearances in the eyes of others.

The motley and their allies drive back to The Spark, with Zistor at the helm of his nuclear-powered Winnebago. They are proud of Sophia's new title, Patches' accomplishments at the Grand Bes Din (so far!), and of the creation of the Golden Braid, and everyone looks forward to the next chapter of their lives.

Returning to the Spark, they are greeted in the Exhaust by an exhausted Ramzia. Sophia takes her up to her penthouse to try to encourage her to rest while Patches gets cracking on her gift to Lenore: a compact, portable loom (with some extra bells and whistles, naturally). Upstairs, Ramzia admits to Sophia that she has recently stopped being able to remember her dreams at all; is something perhaps blocking her? She gathers Braum, Patches, and Sophia together to tell them a bit more about her journey to find her True Heart. She tells them that, in seeking her lost love, death "kept getting in the way", and that she took on the "mantle of a story" in order to accept immortality. Her story has cast her as a star-crossed lover, but she believes fervently that fate will reunite them. Not being able to dream, though, robs her of her love. The motley agree to dive into her dreams to help.

Inside Ramzia's dream, the motley find themselves standing on the edge of a cliff at the edge of the world; beyond them, the Wyld. The woman known as All Fates Saved walks off into the chaos, morphing into the form of Ramzia. When the motley follows her, they find themselves on the boardwalk that Sophia has seen before. A man in the dream claims that everything in the world makes an echo except the quack of a duck; suddenly, there are many more ducks present than before. The three take a dream-crafted boat out to the bridge where they see Ramzia; underneath the bridge, reflected, is a shadowed figure that can't be made out. Braum is not able to reach her through the surface of the water, but Sophia has an idea when one of the ducks lands on Patches' arm. Sophia reaches out to the duck and uses Willow Whisper to speak to it: "take me home, outside this place," the duck implores.

Leaving the dream, the three find themselves back in Sophia's penthouse, but with a duck! The creature looks at each in turn, then hops up on the bed to sit near Ramzia. Opening its mouth to quack, instead a woman's voice comes out: "I'm lost… I wandered too far from the path. I can't find the path. Shades stretch far back… Can you find mine? Hers? Focus. Remember. I don't forget you. I have hope, and I love you. For eternity," the duck says to Ramzia. It flaps up and dives into Ramzia, disappearing from view.

Sophia realizes that Ramzia and her True Heart are related across time and space, and that whatever affects one will impact the other. Perhaps by using their Arts, they can create a more definite link between the two? They ask Zistor to take the Somnambulus out once more, but this time, off the Silver Path. While Sir Xaeron has confidence in them, as the literal embodiment of the dreams of humanity, Kyoko is less than thrilled that Braum didn't even discuss the quest with her before accepting. How dangerous will it be off the Silver Path?