You awoke one dreary morning to find that someone had slipped a crisp white envelope underneath your door.
The fine parchment was unmistakably addressed to you by your full name, penned by an elegant and sweeping hand, and wax-sealed with a familiar symbol: the wings of the Fowle Estate.
Lord Roderick Fowle had not been seen in over a decade; he had locked himself away inside Toadmere Rookery, the mysterious estate that overlooked Pallhallow, and never emerged nor admitted guests of any kind. The only proof that he still lived was the fact that his self-named ambassador, Micawber, daily passed in and out of the estate and conducted business on behalf of Lord Fowle. Micawber, though entirely pleasant in conversation, would only say that Lord Fowle was occupied by more important affairs. Anything more was only speculation on the part of the citizens of Pallhallow.
Inside this most curious envelope was an invitation, which read thusly:
Lord Roderick Ancroft Fowle Requests the Pleasure of Your Company at the MASQUERADE
Twenty-Fifth of November, Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Five
Seven O'Clock in the Evening
Toadmere Rookery Ballroom
Each Guest Shall Present an Invitation Upon Arrival
In the week that followed the discovery of these invitations, Micawber was nowhere to be seen. The gates of Toadmere Rookery remained shut tight, and the estate itself loomed dark as the grave.
The day of November twenty-fifth dimmed to twilight. At seven o'clock -- punctually -- the gates unlocked and swung open on their own. Streetlamps lit up along the cobbled path to the estate, where warm lights glowed through the windows for the first time in ten years. The faint sound of music could be heard from the lawn.
Micawber stood inside the door, dressed in the finest blue corded uniform of a foreign general. Micawber requested the production of each guest's invitation, asked to take coats, and ushered the way to the bright open doors of the ballroom, but answered all other questions with a silent and courteous smile -- except, any question regarding the Lord Fowle would receive the same reply: "Lord Roderick Fowle will present a speech with which to open the first dance."
The luxurious ballroom had been fitted with fine blue curtains on the vaulted windows, gold-trimmed columns, and a painted domed ceiling that offered a breathtaking view of the artist's night sky, rarely seen through the perpetual clouds of Pallhallow. A long, white-dressed table was filled with silver platters of small delicacies, bottles of wine and rows of fragile glasses. Music filled the room, but there was no chamber orchestra: instead, the job had been delegated to a polished phonograph at the far end of the room.
As the phonograph repeated the same waltz a second and third time, it became clear that fewer than a dozen invitations had been received. There were far too few guests present even to hold a proper dance; every step and sound echoed in the empty ballroom.
Antlers,
Shifter_Master,
Neziul,
Iluvtoji,
IAmTheIsland,
Bugman,
Passable Writer,
Fetzen,
Not a Sayan,
Stanifly
