>>5960110You fall several feet, landing unpleasantly. You dust yourself off, though, ultimately none the worse for wear except for your pride. You look around, finding yourself in what appears to be the great chamber of some sort of hall or manor—a decrepit one, unkempt and uncared for, dusty and decaying. The roof is full of holes, most of the fine windows shattered to let in a howling nighttime breeze which carries an unseasonable chill. Brownish-red vines creeping in through these breaches, leafless but replete with thorns, and dead and withered leaves blow about, forming a shifting carpet beneath your feet.
And, of course, there are the locals.
Grey, flattened faces lit in the uncanny gloom by hovering tittering fairy-lights, blackened eyes like holes into the unknown, the Unseelie Court gaze at you from every corner. There are dozens of the wizened, sinister little pixie-folk—some as you have seen them before, shaggy-coated, othered armed and armoured in broken antlers and soiled furs, wielding chipped and rusted arms and armour.
“And you,” you address the central figure, “you must be ‘Queenie’.”
“The impudent little whelps do call me that, don’t they?” she replies, with a droll smile.
