[h2]Abdul Alhazred[/h2][h3]Terrific Tales of Times Past![/h3]

In the northeast corner of the room, surrounding a tasteful ice sculpture of one Ichabod Crane in a rare moment of dignity, a small crowd had gathered. Not one of them shared a history, but amongst all of them a deep kinship was felt. These were the Fables best known for their scholarly duties.

Wizards, warlocks, sages, mages, witches, and liches of all sorts generally congregated in groups, for a wide variety of reasons. In some cases, it's because the only thing a witch can understand and empathize with is another witch. In others, it's because witches are naturally obligated to start bloody conflicts with other witches. In a rare few cases, it's because these witches have something they need from one another. Regardless of the reason, there was a war of many-colored and many-shaped witches huddled around one another, with little care for each other's personal space. As is the case with many magic-users' meetings, things remained amicable but with very noticeable overtones of impending violence. At the present, they were boasting about their experiences.

Abdul Alhazred was, contrary to popular opinion, not one to flip over tables and shower the room in hellfire at the slightest hint of competition. Nonetheless, he happily kept the same tone of voice the rest of the witches, who [i]were[/i] the kind of people to do just that. His voice was cheerful and gentle, but, as was uniform amongst magic-users, held Implications. Right now, it was Abdul's turn to speak.

Abdul had been talking about the myriad minor gods, daemons, spirits, and deluded mortal creatures he had consulted over the course of his travels. Creatures of the night were, strangely enough, quite talkative if properly libated, and could act as a bottomless font of eldritch lore.

"--and I'll be honest, it was the best pilaf I've ever tasted!" Abdul said, wiping a stray fleck of dust off his shabby woollen jumper. "Yaldabaoth is quite a useful fellow, once you got used to him!"

This set off a wave of hawkish chattering amongst the attending witches and wizards. A small amount of them had convened with the Squamous God Yaldabaoth, Lowborn King of Scaled Vermin, Banner-Carrier of the Black Century, and often found their interactions to be pleasant, if somewhat tense. 

The conversation briefly diverted onto the topic of how best to prepare pilaf. Many of the witches present had come from The Rus, and were eager to have their voices heard. The air around the impromptu coven stank of ozone as the witches amicably bickered and spat with one another. The sight of a crowd of witches arguing, much like a raging hurricane, can only be seen in its true horror a ways away from its center. At the center of it all was Abdul, smiling toothlessly and pleasantly presenting his [i]own[/i] ideas on how best to prepare pilaf. Yaldabaoth and plenty others had given him a bottomless index of recipes borne from man's deepest dreams, and he was happy to share them!